Some Human Oddities: Studies in the Queer, the Uncanny, and the Fanatical

SOME
HUMAN
ODDITIES

Studies in the Queer,
the Uncanny and
the Fanatical

SOME
HUMAN
ODDITIES

Studies in the Queer,
the Uncanny and
the Fanatical

WITH TWELVE PLATES

by Eric John Dingwall, m.a., d.sc, ph.d.

UNIVERSITY BOOKS New Hyde Park, New York

68789

Thanks are due to the American Psychical Research

Society and Columbia University Library for providing copies

of the original edition of this book for reproduction purposes

Copyright © 1962 by University Books, Inc.
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number 62-14948
Manufactured in the United States of America

1 r

i o 5

I) 58 A

INTRODUCTION
By John C. Wilson

! (r, Dingwall belongs to a very rare profession. He is one of perhaps
.i dozen full-time psychical researchers in the world today (if there
are a dozen). There are very few of them, because there is almost no
way for psychical researchers to make even a modest living at their
chosen profession. There are less than a handful of academic chairs
In this borderline science and the distinguished but small psychical
research societies in England and the United States offer employment
In very few indeed. Something more is being done today by a newer
organization, the Parapsychology Foundation, but necessarily only
in the form of temporary grants. Only heroes and martyrs and
extraordinarily courageous pioneers are likely to be found in such an
unattractive profession.

Eric Dingwall belongs among the very first of these. By common
consent among those qualified to judge, I think he would be considered
the world's greatest authority on physical mediumship. Of the six
i hapters of his book, only one, that on D. D. Home, deals with a
physical medium, probably the most famous and extraordinary that
ever lived. What, then, is the connection, if any, between the various
subjects of these chapters? The first is about a saint who performed
miracles. The second is about a transvestite. The third is about a man
ridden by demons. The fourth is about convulsionnaires among
the Jansenists. The sixth (following upon D. D. Home) is about a
i raudulent occultist.

The connection between these farflung subjects is to be found in
Dr. Dingwall's profession. What are we really grappling with when
we try to decide what is true and what is false in the story of D. D.
Home? Dr. Dingwall's most significant sentences on this and, indeed,
on his whole work, is to be found quite buried in an appendix of this
book: "The problem underlying the life and work of D.D. Home can
be briefly summed up by saying that it is the problem of miracles in
its most acute form." Most miracles reported over the ages can be
dismissed as incredible and ridiculous. But not because miracles are
impossible. They are impossible only if one so defines them. It is true
that many of the occurrences reported are due to mal-observation, fraud
and similar sources of error. "The question remains, however, whether

I N ! K ( ) I ) LI ( | i ( ) m

° r n ;" a resid «""i «ists which is ,,,,1 „,„,, to any normal explana-
tion known to us, and is therefore for the time being, inexplicable
Here was a man who was no i immured in some religious house,
surrounded by an atmosphere of sanctity and by companions wholly
unversed in modern ways of thought. The phenomena sa.d to occur
in his presence were of a type familiar to all students of the subject
and many of them bore a startling resemblance to some of those
reported with the Saints of the West and the Holy Men of the East
Yet all attempts to solve the mystery failed then, as they failed in the
past. Yet, were a satisfactory solution to be arrived at, what a flood
of light would be let into some of the darker fields of human activity "
When Dr. Dingwall speaks of the darker fields of human activity
he means, if I understand him, not only those dark because hidden
or unknown but also such phenomena as the transvestite, the man
ridden by spirits, the quite extraordinarily endowed woman, known
as Angel Anna, who wasted her life as a fraudulent occultist Dr
Dingwall senses, even when he is not quite able to define for us the
connection between occultism and sexuality. But it is there More
accurately, he may not be able to define it in general, but he is quite
well able to show us many specific connections in the history of
religion as in the case of the flagellants (to which he devotes an
extraordinary essay in another book, Very Peculiar People) As the
sub-title of this book shows, by implication, he finds profound con-
nections between the queer, the uncanny and the fanatical

The reader may happily be told that Dr. Dingwall wears his
learning and scholarship very lightly. For the reader who wishes
to go on, however, it is there. The back of the book is devoted to
appendices which provide a decade of reading for anyone who wishes
to pursue these fascinating subjects.

\

PREFACE

BOOKS about queer people are usually of two main types. There
■ lie those in which a vivid presentation of each character is made,
unencumbered with any references to the documentary and other
sources consulted. Then there are the more technical accounts
which are mainly medical and psychological monographs, and
which make no pretence to being anything else than case histories
ol the people concerned.

The present work aims at being a combination of the two.
I he author is convinced that there are many people who remain
dissatisfied with popularly written accounts of odd people, and who
I eel the need of a more detailed treatment in which the points of
interest to the scientific man are briefly discussed and original
sources indicated.

In the present work I have, therefore, added at the end of the
book a supplementary note to each chapter in which further details
and references will be found, but to which it is not necessary to
refer if the reader is satisfied with the portrait printed in the main
text. Thus the book can be used equally well both by the general
reader and by the specialist in the various borderland medical and
psychological phenomena which the characters have been chosen to
illustrate.

In conclusion, it remains my pleasant task to thank all those who
have helped me in the preparation of the book and from whose
advice and criticism I have profited. I am also indebted to the
publishers, John Murray, for permission to quote some extracts
from the letters of Mrs. Browning, the proprietors of the News of
the World for their kindness in allowing me to reproduce the drawing
of Angel Anna, the proprietors of Punch for permission to reproduce
the cartoon featured on Plate X and the verses on D. D. Home,
and the Council of the Society for Psychical Research for permitting
me to reproduce the two photographs of D. D. Home.

E. J. DINGWALL,
Cambridge,

CONTENTS

PAGE

"*L** St. Joseph of Copertino : the Friar who flew 9

II. James Allen : the Man who was not . . 3 8

HI. Berbiguier : Bottler of Spirits 52-

IV. The Deacon of Paris : Dead but still active 68

V. D. D. Home : Sorcerer of Kings . • 9 1

VI. Angel Anna : the Woman who failed . 129

160

Appendix

I. St. Joseph of Copertino l6z

II. James Allen . • • ■ ■ '

III. Berbiguier 178

IV. The Deacon of Paris 181

V. D. D. Home . . . 187

VI. Angel Anna . x 94

CHAPTER ONE

ST. JOSEPH OF COPERTINO : THE FRIAR
WHO FLEW

IN Apulia, the district in the extreme south-east, or heel of Italy,
lies the province of Lecce, and some nine miles south-east of the
city of the same name is to be found the little town of Copertino.
Founded in medieval times it has had a long and chequered history ;
.iiul ll one visits it to-day, and asks the way to the Via Vittoria,
one will soon arrive at the Church of S. Guiseppe da Copertino,
I 'inlt during the years 1754-8 in honour of one Guiseppe (or
foseph in English) Desa, who was born here in 1603, and who was
destined to be one of the most remarkable men ever canonized by
the Roman Catholic Church.

1 lis father, Felix Desa, was a carpenter, but, owing to financial
difficulties and the importunities of creditors, he and his wife,
Frances Panara, had to seek refuge away from home, and report
has it that Joseph was born in a stable to which his mother had
resorted when her time came.

rhe child was brought up under a system of pious but rigid
maternal discipline ; and he soon showed decided leanings towards
the religious life, going so far as to make up a small altar in a
.oi ner of the house (as did St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds
.1 1 entury later), which he used both by day and by night for prayers
and for recitations of the rosary and litany. At the age of eight it
was reported that he had his first ecstasy ; and his behaviour at
ichool, where occasionally he used to sit agape and motionless and
with his eyes raised to heaven, earned him the nickname of " Open
Mouth." His unhealthy way of living, poor food, and self-
inflicted miseries were soon to have their effect, for he was afflicted
by .111 internal abscess or sore of some kind which began to spread,
and which compelled him to remain in bed as he could no longer

10 SOMB III imam i >DDI l IBS

w.uk. I lis mother became very worried aboul his condition, and
soughl oul ,i hermit who had the reputation of a healer in cases such
as those of Joseph, and who succeeded in effecting a miraculous cure.

From the records of the time we know how foseph ate and what
were the torments he inflicted upon himself. His fasting not only
deprived him of meat, but he was accustomed to cover the few
vegetables and herbs he ate with a bitter powder, and he often
went without food altogether for two or three days at a time.
Next to his skin he wore a rough hair-shirt, and the chroniclers
seem to agree that this garment was of an exceptionally prickly
nature.

At the age of seventeen he became determined to devote his life
to religion ; and thus he offered himself to the Friars Minor of
the Conventuals, in which Order two of his uncles, Fr. Franches-
chino, his father's brother, and Fr. Giovanni Donato, his mother's
brother, were religious. His two relations, however, resisted his
application, as they thought that his ignorance and lack of education
would hardly fit him for a priestly vocation.

Nothing daunted, however, and perhaps recognizing the justice
behind the rebuff he had received, Joseph decided on a new idea,
and forthwith presented himself to Fr. Antonio Francavilla of the
Capuchins, hoping to be taken on as a lay-brother. To his great
joy he was accepted, and taking the name of Stephen he was
admitted to the Capuchin Order in August 1620. At first he was
destined to work in the refectory, but the result of his frequent fits
of absence of mind and ecstatic states on the crockery was disastrous,
and Joseph added to the irritation caused by his breakages by wearing
the pieces round his neck. From the refectory he was put to work
in the kitchen, carrying firewood and doing odd jobs for the staff
working there. But his mental condition made his employment
impossible, and after eight months had ..elapsed he was deprived
of his habit and was dismissed.

On leaving the monastery Joseph went on to Vetrara to see
another of his uncles who worked in the locality. On his journey
he met numerous perils such as attacks by fierce dogs and an

sr. ioshpii 01 coi>i;k 1 ino : 1 UK FRIAR WHO PLBW 11

■ mounter with a devil. 1 laving arrived at his destination he sought
oul his uncle who received him ill-humouredly, but with patience,
telling him that he was a useless vagabond, and after a short time
taking him back to Copertino, where his mother received him to
the tune of what one of his biographers calls the most pungent
1 1 ive< t ive.

After a time, however, it was arranged, partly through the good
oil ices 0 f Fr. Donato, that Joseph should be received as a tertiary
into the Order of Conventuals at Grottella (Grottaglie), a mile or
10 to the cast of Copertino, where he was put to work in the stable
looking after the mule. Evidently remembering what had happened
to him before, Joseph did not fail this time in his work, although
he still went barefoot wearing his hair-shirt, and in addition, a
narrow iron chain tightly fastened about his loins. Moreover, he
■.I ill carried out his prolonged fasting, and slept upon three boards
upon which had been thrown a bear-skin and a rough sack stuffed
with straw to serve as a pillow.

Finally, his superiors thought that the time had come for a
1 hange ; and to Joseph's great joy he was received into the Order
ol St. Francis as a cleric on 19th June 1625, at a Provincial Chapter
.it Altamura. He was clothed in the religious habit, took the
name of Fr. Joseph Maria, and began his novitiate at the monastery
at Grotella two years later (30th January 1627). He received minor
orders without previous examination, passing on to a subdeaconship
on 27th February, and a deaconship on 20th March. There still
remained the priesthood to attain ; and the examination of this
was entrusted to Battista Deti, Bishop of Castro, a stern examiner
when it was a question of admitting deacons to the priesthood.
The first few students who were questioned did so well that the
good Bishop thought that all were equally good, so did not continue
the examination, admitting the rest without questioning, among
whom was our Joseph, who thus became a priest on 28th March
1628.

On Joseph's return to Grottella he at once began the life of an
extreme ascetic. He continued his fasting and consumption of

S< >MG ill IMAN ODD] i 1 1

herbs which, again like St. Mary Frances, he covered with Ins

special powder, thus making them so unpalatable and unpleasant
thai one of the monks, who put a portion on tin- end of his tongue,
felt so ill that for three days he could not touch food without
nausea. Joseph called himself " The Ass " ; and when he was
ordered by the Superior to have his beard attended to, he said :
" We are going to wash and clean up this Ass." Day by day he
continued his scourgings, inflicted both by himself and others ;
and indeed the whip was now more pamful than ever, being
furnished with pins and star-shaped metal pieces which caused the
blood to spurt out and stain the walls of his cell. In addition to
his hair-shirt and iron chain he now wore a large iron plate which
bit into his flesh. Indeed, as we shall note later, his Superior had
to prohibit the use of some of these contraptions ; and moreover,
Joseph's ecstasies disturbed the services to such an extent that he
was not allowed to join with the others in the choir or even to eat
with them in the refectory.

News of these regulations was not likely to be kept secret, and
stones of miracles and legends began to cluster around Joseph's
name, and at length the attention of the authorities was attracted
and action was taken. He was ordered to leave Copertino and to
proceed to Naples to be examined by the Holy Office. Whilst
there he stayed at the monastery of S. Laurentio, and was thrice
brought before the Inquisition ; but the charges against him were
dismissed and he was allowed to say Mass in their own church of
St. Gregory of Armenia. Here a remarkable incident was said to
have occurred. After having said Mass in the secret chapel, he
went into a corner of the church to pray. Suddenly he rose up
into the air, and with a cry flew in the upright position to the altar
with his hands outstretched as on a cross, and alighted upon it in
the middle of the flowers and candles which were burning in
profusion. The nuns of St. Ligorio, who were observing each one
of his acts and movements, and saw him first in the air and later
among the burning candles, cried out loudly : "He will catch
fire .' He will catch fire .' " But Fr. Lodovico, his companion, who

st. |osi-:i>ii or cophrtino : Tin: priar who n.nw ij

was present and who made a statement in the Process, and who
was accustomed to such sights, told the nuns not to lack faith as
In- would not burn himself. Then, with another cry, Joseph flew
l»,u k into the church in a kneeling position and, alighting upon his
knees, began to whirl round upon them, dancing and singing, being
filled as he was with joy and exultation and exclaiming : " Oh !
most Blessed Virgin, most Blessed Virgin ! "

I lad Joseph's power of levitation not been supported by evidence
I Kim high places it might have done Joseph more harm than good.
But when he was in Rome another notable event occurred. The
l ather-General of his Order arranged for him to kiss the feet of
the Pope, Urban VIII. On finding himself in the presence of the
Supreme Pontiff, Joseph was seized by ecstatic rapture and rose
into the air, remaining suspended until recalled to his senses by
the Father-General. The Pope was so much impressed by this
surprising event that he is said to have declared that, should Joseph
die during his pontificate, then he himself would testify to the
I ruth of what he had seen.

From Rome Joseph was sent to Assisi where he arrived in
April 1639. Trouble awaited him there. The Custos, Fr. Antonio
di S. Mauro, evidently had his suspicions regarding the genuineness
of Joseph's ecstasies and raptures, for he regarded him at first with
haughtiness, then with contempt, and finally with threats as if he
were an untrained novitiate. Nevertheless, Joseph remained humble
and obedient ; and the more he found himself humiliated the
more did he show his respect, attributing the offensive behaviour
of his Superior to his own insufficiency, and converting to his own
spiritual uses that bitterness which was his lot. Indeed, to be
called a hypocrite and to be subject to penances, not only alone
but sometimes in the presence of others, could not have been at
all pleasant to Joseph, who began seriously to doubt his own
worthiness. Moreover, he began to be assailed by every kind of
hideous and unchaste dream, and he saw visions which were clearly
hallucinatory in character. In this way, says one of his biographers,
poor Joseph was reduced " from the high level of his own

i -I SDMr 1 1 1 IMAN ODDI i II S

meditations to tlx- low level ol perscail ion, melancholy, sterility
and temptation."

This deplorable state into which Joseph had fallen lasted for
about tv/o years and, according to the relevant documents, the
Superior-General of the Order heard what was going on and sent
for Joseph to join him in Rome, whence, after a short stay, the
ascetic returned to Assisi and was enthusiastically received by the
inhabitants. When he entered the basilica of the monastery and
saw the crowds and notables who were gathered together, he raised
his eyes to Heaven and saw the picture of the Virgin Mary painted
on the celling surmounting the carved wooden group on the altar
depicting the Immaculate Conception. Uttering a cry, Joseph rose
into the air and flew eighteen paces (diciotto passi=about 15 yards)
in order to embrace it, crying out : " Oh ! My Mother ! Thou
hast followed me! " This phenomenon excited great interest and
fear, for apparently the story had already been circulated that,
when Joseph had been told that he had been formally received into
the Family of the Conventuals of the Sacred Convent, thus becoming
a compatriot of St. Francis, he passed into the ecstatic condition,
and having taken leave of his senses floated up as far as the ceiling
of his cell.

During the years he spent in Copertino and in the monastery
at Assisi the number of his flights and other miraculous doings
are too numerous to describe. Indeed, there was almost a constant
succession of raptures during which surprising cases of levitation
were observed. For example, when at Copertino, he often used
to become insensible for considerable periods of time when he
listened to music being played in the church. On one occasion
some shepherds, who used to tend their sheep near Grottella, were
approached by Joseph with the proposal that on Christmas Eve
they should play joyfully upon their pipes. They accepted, and
all went into the church, which soon resounded with the music
from pipe and reed. Fr. Joseph was so full of joy that he began
to dance in the middle of the nave to the sound of the pipes, and
then, giving a deep sigh and loud cry, he flew like an angel through

ST. JOSEPH OF COPERTINO: tin; friar who h.hw 15

the ait from the middle ol the church where he had been dancing
on to the High Altar on which was the tabernacle which he
embraced, and which was about twenty yards 1 distant from the
spot from which he rose.

The shepherd who tells the story thought that what was
especially wonderful was that the altar had many burning candles
upon it, and that Joseph alighting thereon did not knock anything
over, but remained kneeling for about a quarter of an hour, and
then got down and blessed the shepherds, who thought that they
had been present at a miracle. Indeed, one of Joseph's biographers
says they were astounded beyond measure as, on another occasion,
were some other monks and inhabitants of Copertino, when the
Blessed Joseph had to assist at a procession which was held in the
Church of St. Francis and in honour of that Saint. As the pro-
cession was just beginning, Joseph sank into a state of meditation
and, forgetting the holy vestment which he was wearing and the
sacred function at which he was officiating, and moreover, having
already come out of the sacristy, he was overtaken by a brief ecstasy,
followed quickly by rapture, during which he flew up to the pulpit,
on which he knelt, and which was nearly four feet from the ground. 2

Following this account another incident is recorded which was
said to have taken place on the night following a Thursday in
Holy Week. He was in church along with other religious, and
they were all praying in front of the altar on which the sepulchre
or Altar of Repose had been placed and which had been decorated
with ornamental clouds and lamps making a majestic and unified
picture. Suddenly Joseph flew up on the altar to embrace the
tabernacle without paying any attention to the clouds, lamps,
ornaments and other obstacles, which he passed through as if he
were making his way through a narrow lane or between stakes.

1 D. Bernino, Vita del P. Fra Giuseppe da Copertino (Venezia, 1753, P- z 5)> sa )' s i""
de cinque canne. Pastrovicchius (A.S., Sept., V, iozia) says plus quarn quinque
perticis. Bernino (or Bernini) was the eldest son of the famous Italian artist, Gian
Lorenzo Bernini, who died in 1680.

2 Bernino, op. cit. : p. 151, has quindici palmi. Pastrovicchius has quindecim-
palmis (A.S., 1021B).

10 SOME human ODDITIES

I here lie remained upon Ins knees until the Superior recalled him
to his place, to which he obediently returned without having done
any damage to himself or to the altar with its decorations. In
thus describing this incident Bernino (op. ext., p. 154) goes so far
as to say that in the Mass, which he then celebrated, he was
suspended in the air longer than with his feet on the ground,
although very often he stood on the points of his big toes in a most
unnatural position. On another occasion when entering the church
from the sacristy he heard the congregation repeating the words
" Holy Mary, pray for us," and suddenly, uttering a cry, he sprang
up and flew right over the heads of the congregation to alight upon
the altar.

This story of Joseph's flight, and the fact that he was able to
alight on an altar crowded with objects without disturbing any of
them, is paralleled by another report of a flight where the same
phenomenon was observed. It appears that one day Joseph went
to see a sick man in whose room there was a sacred picture which
attracted his attention. Under the picture was a small table on
which had been placed a number of bottles containing various
medicines, among which was also a phial containing some kind of
balsam. At the sight of the picture Joseph immediately flew up in
the air and landed on the table in the kneeling position, remained
a few moments, and then flew back to the place from which he
had risen without overturning or breaking anything.

The flights and levitations of Joseph did not always occur inside
buildings, but sometimes out of doors. For instance, it is recorded
that one day a priest, Antonio Chiarello, who was walking with
him in the kitchen-garden, remarked how beautiful was the heaven
which God had made. Thereupon Joseph, as if these words were
an invitation to him from above, uttered a shriek, sprang from the
ground and flew into the air, only coming to rest on the top of an
olive tree where he remained in a kneeling position for half an hour.
It was noticed with wonder at the time that the branch on which
he rested only shook slightly as if a bird had been sitting upon it.
It appears that in this case Joseph came to his senses whilst still

Joseph of Copertino rose like a bird into the air." (See p. 17)

st. Joseph oi- coprrtino : nu; iriar who ii.hw 17

on the tree, as the Rev. Antonio had to go to fetch a ladder to get
lum down. This seems all the more remarkable as the fact that
his weight did not bend down the branch on which he rested
whilst in trance might have been ascribed to the force responsible
for his levitation, which presumably would no longer be active
after Joseph had recovered his senses. Why, then, did not the
branch break, or did the holy man crawl to a safer one before
being rescued? The Process does not tell us, neither do his
biographers, as far as I have been able to consult them.

On another occasion it is said that Joseph wanted three crosses
erected on a little hill lying between Copertino and the Convent
of Grottella. One of the crosses was of walnut, tall and very
heavy, and ten workmen were engaged in dealing with it. All of
them struggled vainly to place it in its proposed position, and
Joseph became impatient at the delay. " Here I am," said he,
and having taken off his cloak and rushing forward he rose like a
bird into the air, flew a distance of fifteen paces 1 (about 12 yards)
and with both hands seized the cross and, as if it were made of
straw, carried it off and put it in the hole which had been prepared
for it. (See Plate I.)

On more than one occasion the mystery of Joseph's levitations
was deepened by the fact that he was reported to lift others with
him on his aerial flights. For example, in the Church of Santa
Chiara in Copertino a festival was once 111 progress in honour of
the clothing of some novitiates. Joseph was present, and was on
his knees in a corner of the church, when the words Veni Sfonsa
Cristi (Come, Bride of Christ) were being intoned. Giving his
accustomed cry, he ran towards the convent's father confessor, a
priest from Secli, a village not far off, and who was attending the
service and, seizing him, grasped him by the hand and (to quote
Bernmo) " in a joyous rapture began to whirl round and round
just as David did before the Ark of the Lord. 2 Finally both rose
into the air in an ecstasy, the one borne aloft by Joseph and the

1 Pastrovicchius says " about eighty paces."

2 See II Samuel vi. 14.

SOME human ODDITIBS

other by God Himself, hull, being sons oi St. Francis, the one
being beside himself with fear but the other with sanctity. Thus
it is noted in the Processes how a Custos of the Sacro Convento
of Assisi, a lunatic and a priest of the Order of the Reformati were
all at different times and in different places seized and carried
aloft by this Angel of God, like Habbakuk by the hair,* or like
the prophet Elijah in his aerial journey. Happy travellers,"
Joseph's biographer concludes, " to whom God conceded so rare' a
gift as to travel towards Heaven without regard to their own merit
but in the company of others I "

The story of Joseph and the lunatic is, perhaps, worth recording
here. It appears that one day a certain nobleman named Baldassare
Rossi was brought to Joseph so that he might cure him of a mental
trouble which had transformed him, according to Bernino, into a
most furious madman (furiosissimo Matto). He was brought by his
relations with considerable difficulty, as he had to be tied into his
chair ; and further trouble was encountered when he was untied
and forced to kneel before Joseph who, on seeing him, drew him
up from his chair, made him stand up, and then put his hand
upon his head saying : " Sir Baldassare, do not be in doubt but
commend yourself to God and to His most holy Mother." Whilst
saying these words he seized his hair with the hand which he had
placed upon the madman's head and, uttering his usual cry, he
rose into the air in a rapture, taking with him the lunatic, 'the
pair remaining in the air for about a quarter of an hour before they
returned to earth. Then Joseph told Baldassare to be joyous, and
the knight, having in the meantime become sane, went home,
praising God and the servant of God for so marvellous an event. 2 '
From the records of the life of Joseph it would seem that the
stones of his raptures and aerial journeys were not confined to the
immediate surroundings of the monastery where he lived, but
were bruited abroad and attracted the attention of lay persons who
were anxious to make themselves personally acquainted with them.

1 Btl and the Dragon, 36.

2 The seventeenth-century form of modern shock therapy.

st. |osi;ph 01 coPHRTiNO : tin; 1'riak who h.i-w 19

We may therefore collect a lew of these incidents before passing
nil to review the remaining years of Joseph's life.

One of the most interesting events of this kind was that con-
nected with Johann Friedrich, Duke of Brunswick, who died in
[679, and who was the patron and employer of the great German
philosopher, G. W. Leibnitz (1646-1716), who for many years
had charge of the Brunswick family library in Hanover. He visited
Assisi in February 1651, and expressed a wish to see Joseph in the
Sacro Convento. For this purpose the Duke, on his arrival and
accompanied by two of his noble retinue, Johann Friedrich Blume
and Georg Sittig, of whom Sittig was a Catholic and the other
not, was conducted to a room in the Convent which was called
the Pope's Room. The next morning, which happened to be
Sunday, he with his two companions were secretly taken by a
private staircase to the door of the chapel situated in the Noviziato
Vecchio, where Joseph was accustomed to say Mass, but on this
occasion had no idea that he was being observed. There they heard
him give a loud cry and saw him rise in the air in a kneeling
position, passing backwards five paces and then returning in front
of the altar remaining in ecstasy for some time.

The Duke was naturally eager to see this unexpected phenomenon
a second time, and it was arranged that the next day he should
again see Joseph when he was saying Mass, as it seemed possible
that the Duke, hitherto a Lutheran, might be converted to the
Roman Catholic faith. On Monday morning, therefore, the Duke
was again present at the service ; and this time he saw Joseph
raised a palm high from the altar step and remain floating for about
a quarter of an hour. The Duke was so overcome by the sight
that his doubts were resolved and he became a Catholic. Not so
Heinrich Blume, who was of the Lutheran persuasion, although
already tending towards Catholicism. He was frankly annoyed
and exclaimed : " May I be cursed for coming to this country !
I arrive with a quiet mind, but here I am always in a state of
agitation and anger and, further, I have difficulties with my
conscience."

.'O

sow. human odditm;

Unfortunately, Leibnitz does not seem (<> have, written much
about the marvellous events which hastened the steps of his noble
patron into the Catholic fold. It is true that he bluntly says that
the Duke went to Assisi and was there converted to the Roman
Catholic faith by the wonder-working Father Joseph, 1 but he
appears to think that it was wiser not to comment upon the nature
or explanation of these wonders. It ought, perhaps, to be recorded
here that the recalcitrant chamberlain who accompanied the Duke
to Assisi is reported to have become a Catholic also in 1653.

Another of Joseph's visitors was Frederic Maurice de la Tour
d'Auvergne, Due de Bouillon (1605-52). He was in Italy in 1644
and was said to have come to Assisi on purpose to see the friar ;
but in the account of his journey, which was published in 1656, I
cannot find any mention of it. Similarly, Isabella of Austria, the
daughter of the Archduke Leopold of Innsbruck and wife of
Charles Gonzaga the Second, Duke of Mantua, visited Joseph, but
again in her short biography, published in 1696, I can find no
account of the incident. Another noble lady who was much
attracted to Joseph was the Infanta Maria, daughter of Carlo
Emanuele (Charles Emmanuel) the Great, Duke of Savoy (+ 1630),
and who was much drawn to the religious life, and who in her
piety had visited many Italian shrines. She came to see the holy
friar and remained about a month 2 in Perugia, whence she used
to visit Assisi, and was much impressed by reason of the phenomenal
events of which she herself was a witness and in which she par-
ticipated. On one occasion, when at Mass, she saw Joseph, whilst
elevating the Sacred Host, rise three palms above the ground.
Very different was the experience of the Marchioness Artemisia,
the sister of the Duke of Corgna, who with some ladies from
Perugia came to Assisi to be present at the raptures of Joseph, and
to see with their own eyes the inscrutable phenomena which
accompanied them. The plan, however, failed, owing apparently

1 See G. W. Leibnitz, Cesammclte Werh . . . Hrsg. von G. H. Pertz
(Hannoverae, 1843, etc.), IV, i e Folge, p. 9.

2 Bernino (op. cit., p. 89} says " some months."

sr. lo.sHi'ii or- cophrtino : thk FRIAR who FLEW 1\

lo the sagacity of the holy man who, approaching the Marchioness
with a look of disdain upon his face, asked her why she had thus
come out of pure curiosity, and did she not know that God could
work miracles on a piece of wood ? The lady was so taken aback
I hat, as the record puts it, she felt " like a wet hen," since she
realized only too clearly that the secret thoughts of the heart were
not hidden from Joseph.

Another of the famous visitors who came to see the flying friar
in 1645 was Juan Alfonso Henriquez de Cabrera, Duke of Medina
de Rio-Seco and an Admiral of Castile, together with his wife
and family, who were making their way to Rome, since the
Admiral had been appointed Spanish Ambassador to the Apostolic
See. Born in 1597 the Admiral had had an active political and
military life, and it was not until about 1645 that he was sent to
Rome to present his papers to the new Pope, Innocent X. His
stay in Italy, however, was far from untroubled, due apparently to
various intrigues and ecclesiastical difficulties ; and on his return
to Spain after only a brief period in Rome, Naples and Genoa, he
died in January 1647 from a fever which he had been unable to
shake off.

On his way to Rome, " attracted by the fame of so great a
Servant of God," as Bernino puts it (op. cit., p. 83), he arranged to
interview Joseph in his cell ; and later told his wife, who was
awaiting him in the church, that he had seen and spoken to another
St. Francis. This so intrigued the good lady that she expressed
the wish to talk to Joseph herself, a proposal which the Custos
knew would be repugnant to Joseph, who avoided women. Evidently
wishing to please the Admiral and his wife, the Custos, by virtue
of his authority, told Joseph to go to the church and speak to the
lady and the female retinue which accompanied her. Joseph smiled
and said that he would obey, but did not know if he would be
able to speak. Well did he foresee his own powerlessness in this
matter which, as the chronicler observes, was derived from a
higher source. Acting on the orders of his Superior, Joseph left
his cell and entered the church by a little door facing the altar

human uDnniis

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ST. JOSHPH OF COPERTINO : THE FRIAR WHO FLEW 23

life, abdicated and retired to the abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres,
finally dying at Nevers in 1672.

Apart from his frequent levitations Joseph exhibited other
phenomena. He was credited with reading the thoughts of persons
for whom he acted as confessor, giving examples both of clairvoyance
and prevision. For instance, during his last illness Joseph asked
the doctor attending him whether he had made his confession.
" Yes," replied the doctor, to which Joseph countered, " Go and
think a little more." After a moment's reflection the doctor said
that he could not remember anything more, to which Joseph
replied by saying : " Think of what you were doing on such and
such a day and at such and such an hour," at which, recollection
came back to the good man, who went forthwith to confess his
fault.

Apart from his other miracles Joseph is reported as healing the
sick, miraculously multiplying food, finding lost articles, and was
even credited with the power of bilocation. 1 Nevertheless it can
hardly be doubted that his battles with the devil (who once
appeared complete with horns some two feet long) partook of the
nature of particularly vivid hallucinations. For example, one day,
when he was praying at night in the church, he heard the door
impetuously pushed open and a man appeared who sounded as if
he were wearing iron clogs. Joseph followed him with his eyes and
he noticed that, as he approached, the lamps round the altar of
St. Francis became dimmed, and then went out one by one until
a single lamp was left burning. Commending himself to St.
Francis, Joseph prepared for the assault which soon followed, the
devil pouncing upon him and seizing him by the throat. Invoking
St. Francis, Joseph saw the Seraphic Father emerge from his tomb,
which was near the foot of the altar, and with the help of a small
candle relight the lamps which the devil had extinguished, and
thus ended the terrible experience. Such stories as these are not
uncommon in the lives of the Saints, and whether we believe or
disbelieve them no real understanding of the psychology of sanctity

1 See J. Gorres, La Mystique divine (Paris, 1854), II, p. 339,

•'•I

lOMIi HUMAN OI»l>l IlliS

can be achieved without taking them into account in our appraisal
of the facts.

On 23rd July 1653 the Inquisition ordered Joseph to leave the
monastery in Assisi and proceed to Pietra Rubea in the Duchy
of Urbino, where he was instructed to take up his abode in a
Capuchin monastery. It was on his way to Pietra Rubea that
Hyacinth Libelli ("j- 1684), Archbishop of Avignon, met him at
Citta di Castello and observed one of his ecstasies. They had
been discussing spiritual matters, and Joseph was remarking upon
the lack of human gratitude when the sufferings of the Saviour
were considered, and then he began to enumerate these sufferings
one after the other. As the Archbishop looked at him he suddenly
fell off the box on which he was sitting, with such violence that
Libelli thought he had injured himself. He did not do so,
however, but knelt down before the prelate, his eyes open but
with pupils rolled up, and his arms extended in the shape of a cross
and in the position in which St. Francis is often depicted when
receiving the stigmata. After a short time Libelli tried to move
one of his arms but could only do so with difficulty, and then it
moved from the shoulder like a pendulum so that he was able to
make it swing or oscillate like a plumb-line suspended in the
air. After about fifteen minutes Joseph came to himself and,
addressing Libelli in the Neapolitan dialect, asked to be excused,
since, he added, whilst taking his seat on the box, " sleep
overtook me." 1

Great excitement seems to have occurred during the three months
he lived at Pietra Rubea. The story of his raptures and nights
had been spread abroad, and crowds of sight-seers arrived to see
what might happen, even going so far as to try to remove the tiles
from the roof of the church so as to be able to observe what Joseph
might do when saying Mass. He was therefore soon transferred to
another Capuchin house in Fossombrone ; and in the course of the
journey it was observed that during a heavy shower Joseph's clothes
remained dry. On his arrival his raptures were continued, and on
1 For further descriptions of the trance state see Bernino, op. cit., pp. 107, 755.

ST. JOSHPI I Or COPHK UNO : THK IRIAK WHO FLEW

one occasion when in the dormitory he was found stretched out
Oil the floor as if dead, his eyes and mouth covered with flies, and
apparently in some kind of cataleptic fit. Again, one Sunday he
was in the kitchen-garden with some other brothers when he saw
a lamb belonging to the monastery and, wishing to have a look at
it, one of the young friars took it up and put it into Joseph's arms.
He clasped it to his breast and then took it by the legs and flung
it across his shoulders. Becoming gradually more and more agitated
Joseph began to run through the garden, followed by his companions,
anxious to see what was going to happen. Having thrown the
lamb into the air, Joseph flew after it high up above the trees in
the garden, and remained kneeling in space, as it were, for more
than two hours (per piu di due ore) speaking with the Good Shepherd
and adoring that Lamb the counterpart of which he had thrown
into the air.

From Fossombrone, where he stayed for three years, Joseph was
moved to Montevecchio ; and on the accession of Alexander VII
to the Papacy, a request was made to restore Joseph to the
Conventuals. He was thereupon sent to Osimo, an ancient city
in the Marches, not far from the famous sanctuary of Loreto,
which stands on a hill overlooking the Adriatic and not far from
Ancona. The journey provided material for more stories of miracles
which occurred as they went on their way. For instance, Joseph's
horse was led through the night by his companion, Paolino ;
and the latter, to avoid stumbling, carried in his hand a
candle which neither went out, although a strong wind was
blowing, nor diminished in size although burning for many
hours. This miraculous candle Paolino kept as a relic, " a
splendid testimonial," as the record adds, " to the sanctity of
Fra Joseph."

Having almost arrived at Osimo, Joseph tarried a short time
to gaze at the cupola of Loreto, a sight which brought on the state
of rapture. Uttering his usual cry, Joseph declared that he saw
the angels ascending and descending, and promptly rose into the
air, and with his eyes fixed on the Holy House flew a distance of

-6

somi; human onnuii-s

sonic twenty-five to thirty yards 1 and at a height ol about twelve
palms to (he loot of an almond tree. Whilst Joseph was at Osimo
the Bishop (and later [1657] Cardinal) Antonio Bichi saw him in
a state of- ecstatic rapture. Suddenly Joseph rose from where he
was sitting, and knelt down on the ground with arms outspread
and eyes wide open. Anaesthesia was so complete, according to
the report, that a fly crawled over the pupil of one of his eyes for
an appreciable time without Joseph batting an eyelid. These minor
observations of Joseph's condition during his ecstasies are interesting
from whatever point of view one chooses to regard them. For
instance, one of his biographers, Roberto Nuti, records the fact
that on one occasion during the singing of the canticles it was
noticed that Joseph was apparently kneeling in space, although
part of his habit still touched the ground. Wishing to be certain
of his complete levitation, one of those present passed his hands
beneath him, thus assuring himself that Joseph was completely
raised from the ground.

The most remarkable of all these investigations was doubtless
that made by the surgeon Francesco Pierpaoli, who attended Joseph
during his last illness in the summer of 1663. It appears that
this doctor gave an account of the incident which was included in
the Processes and which Bernino (p. 124) includes in his biography
of the Saint, and which I shall summarize for the benefit of the
reader. During his last illness, the doctor writes, when cauterizing
his right leg by order of Dr. Giancino Carosi, he noticed that he
was rapt and deprived of his senses. Joseph was sitting down
at the time with his right leg lying across Pierpaoli's knees :
cauterization had already begun and his arms were opened wide,
his eyes likewise open and face raised to Heaven, whilst his mouth
was also half-open without showing the least sign of respiration.
Pierpaoli also observed that he was raised almost a palm above
his chair, but in the same position as he was before he became rapt.

1 Bernino, op. ext., p. 113, says set canne : the Acta Sanctorum says spntio sex
pcrticarum. The carina varied in different localities, but may, perhaps, be taken as
about z| to 5 yards.

sr. josiiPt) oi coi'iiR'UNO : TUB FRIAR who FLEW VJ

['he doctor tried to lower his leg but found it: impossible, for it
remained in the same position. Moreover, he noticed that a fly
had settled on the pupil of one of Joseph's eyes, and the more he
drove it away the more obstinately did it return to the same
position, where at last he let it remain. In order better to observe
the position of Father Joseph, he went down on his knees together
with the other doctor who was present, and they both saw clearly
t hat not only was he in a state of rapture, and completely deprived
of his senses, but that he was also raised from the ground in the
air in the way and in the manner described above. As long as a
quarter of an hour passed in this way when Fr. Silvestro Evangelista
of the Osimo Monastery joined them. Having seen what was
occurring, he spoke to Joseph and, using his superior authority,
called him by name. Suddenly Joseph smiled and returned to his
senses and again sat upon his chair saying : "My doctor, put on
the cautery," to which Pierpaoli replied : " Father Joseph, I have
already done so," to which he answered saying that they were
laughing at him, so Pierpaoli let him see his bandaged leg and
again told him, to which he replied that he had felt nothing.

This was not the only time that Dr. Pierpaoli had the opportunity
of observing Joseph during his ecstatic states. On another occasion,
when the physician was attending to his tongue, the Saint passed
into a condition of rapture, which continued whilst the operation
was in progress ; and on still a third occasion the doctor observed
him at Mass when kneeling in his little chapel. He gave a great
cry, which alarmed the physician, and then he saw him extended
on the ground completely devoid of his senses.

The observations which were made when Joseph was levitated
are sometimes of particular interest since they record associated
facts which help us to get a clearer idea of what happened during
these strange occurrences. Thus in the present case it was, as his
biographer Bernino puts it, always noticed how little were his
clothes and vestments disarranged during his aerial flights. It was
almost as though an invisible hand were controlling his garments :
his legs and feet were always covered by his robe, as was his neck

SOMIi HUMAN ODDITIES

I))' Ins cowl. On another occasion when one day he was praying
in a small Vestry off the church, he was seen by all the people in
the church emerging from the windows of the vestry, and then
remain turned towards the tabernacle and suspended in the air
with his knees still together. During this rapture his sandals fell
from his feet inside the chapel, whilst his face shone like that of a
seraph. The Superior ran into the vestry, and from the windows
signed and called upon Joseph to come back, which he did by the
same route, " for to him every window was a door when he was
borne aloft to his God in his raptures." A friar brought his
sandals back to him, because in this spiritual state it seemed that
he despised them as trappings which were always tending to remain
on the ground.

On another occasion before rising in the air he impetuously
threw his biretta far from him, perhaps, as Bernino says, to enjoy
God better with his mind without any impediment and without
the slightest covering. This story is very instructive since it
implies that Joseph may have been aware of a coming rapture and
flight before it occurred, a fact which is suggested by other stones
included in the Process.

In August 1663 Joseph was seized by a fever and grew steadily
worse. On 17th September, or the day before he died, he received
the Viaticum and said that he heard the sound of a bell which
was summoning him to God. Passing into the ecstatic state, he
rose from his death-bed and flew from his cell as far as the steps
of his little chapel. " The Ass is beginning to ascend the
mountain," he said, and, having received Extreme Unction, he
called out in a loud, clear voice, which hardly corresponded with
his extreme weakness : "Oh ! what chants, what sounds of
Paradise I What perfumes, fragrance, sweets and tastes of
Paradise." Fr. Silvestro Evangelista, who, with his physician, had
seen him floating in the air, was with him till the end, which came
on Tuesday, 18th September 1663. This time the spirit had flown
leaving the body behind.

In a letter, written on 2nd October 1663, Cardinal Facchinetti

ST. JOSEPH Op COPERTINO : THE I HI AR WHO PLEW 2C<

of Spoleto tells of his friendship with Joseph, and ol his life when
on earth. Declaring that the ecstasies to which he was subject
were known to all, he added that, speaking for himself, he had
actually seen him levitated and that many of his household had
shared the experience. Similar testimony was given by Cardinal
Giulo Spinola (+ 1691) and Cardinal Francesco Augusto Rapaccioli
("J" 1657) as recorded by Bernino (op. ciU, p. 81).

The story of Joseph of Copertino does not close with his death.
Within three years of his funeral, inquiries were set on foot by
the authorities with the view of obtaining the deposition of actual
witnesses of the miraculous events which were said to have been
observed during his life. Nuti's biography includes the testimony
of many persons who had known Joseph ; and this book must
have been prepared within a few years of his death, although it was
not actually published till 1678. Bernino's book, first published
in 1722, provides abundant references to the details as recorded in
the Process, the printed record of which is so rare as to be known
only in a few copies. The Process itself was concluded in 1735,
when Pope Clement XII first made public the decree asserting the
virtues of Joseph ; and the Congregations for the discussion of the
miracles were held from 1751 to 1752, Pope Benedict XIV publishing
a decree in the latter year approving of two of the miracles which
occurred after Joseph's death. Further inquiries were then set on
foot before the decree by which Joseph was canonized was finally
promulgated. These having proved satisfactory, the decree was
formally announced by Pope Clement XIII on 16th July 1767.
The flying friar had joined the Saints at last.

In connection with the investigations which were made during
the proceedings for canonization, it must be remembered that this
is no mere act by the Pope, which he authorizes or withholds at
his own pleasure. The whole suit is argued before the Congregation
of Rites, which acts as a tribunal before whom the matter is brought.
Evidence is adduced by the official in charge who is called the
Postulator, and the facts are examined with a view to rebuttal by
another official called the Promotor Fidci who tries to pull the case

(i) SOMT HUMAN OIM>IIII!S

to pieces and point out its weaknesses and lack of evidential

standards. The whole procedure is very complicated, and there

seems little doubt that great care is exercised as to the kind of

evidence submitted and the amount of verification demanded for its

acceptance. One of the chief authorities for both beatification and

canonization was Prosper Lambertini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIV,

who published his treatise on the subject in the eighteenth century.

It so happens that this notable authority was the Promotor Fidei in

the case of Joseph of Copertino, and thus he had before him the

reports of Joseph's levitations, the evidence for which it was his

duty to examine, and in which to discover flaws if such existed.

His testimony, therefore, is of some importance, and I shall quote

it. " Whilst I was discharging the office of Promotor Fidei," he

writes, " the cause of the venerable servant of God, Joseph of

Copertino, was discussed by the Congregation of Sacred Rites, and

eye-witnesses of unexceptionable integrity reported on the celebrated

levitations and remarkable flights of this servant of God when in a

condition of ecstatic rapture." 1

These are weighty words and there seems no reasonable doubt

that Lambertini believed fully in the testimony of the witnesses

whom he examined, and consequently in the reality of Joseph's

levitations, and even possibly also of his aerial flights. Moreover,

if we make all possible allowance for exaggeration, it is not easy

to dismiss the testimony of the two medical men or other lay

witnesses, although it is doubtless regrettable that independent

accounts do not appear to have been recorded. But for those of

my readers who are inclined to believe in the reality of these

strange occurrences, a wealth of testimony exists from every part

of the world. Men and women have been reported as floating in

the air without visible support for many hundreds of years. The

Saints of the Roman Catholic Church are not the only ones who

are credited with these powers. Holy men and ascetics in India

1 See Opus de Scrvorum Dei Bcatijuatione et Btatarum Canoni^atione, Lib. Ill, cap.

49, 9 : Optra Omnia (Prati, 1840), III, p. 566). It ought, perhaps, to be said

that Lambertini seems to have believed in the levitations of Pythagoras and
Simon Magus.

ST. JOSliPH Ol- COPURTINO : Till! FRIAR WHO I'l.RW -JI

.ind the Far Hast have many times been described as being levitated,
and the idea is not unknown among so-called savage tribes. Saints
and demoniacs, magicians and mediums, queer men and women of
.ill ages and all times are reported as being raised from the ground
and transported bodily through the air. It was never very common
even among those saints with whose names it is especially con-
nected. And as the years go by it seems to be getting rarer. If
.1 genuine photograph exists showing a levitated person, apart from
one where the appearance is due to trickery, I have yet to see one.
Perhaps we shall know more about these so-called physical
phenomena of mediumship now that we can both see and take
photographs in darkness. Perhaps they will disappear altogether,
and dark stances become a thing of the past. If so, my more
sceptical readers will hardly fail to draw their own conclusions.
And I do not blame them for it.

It is, I think, to be regretted that the authorities of the Roman
Catholic Church appear to be so unwilling to offer any co-operation
when it is a question of investigating physical manifestations
connected with persons professing the Catholic faith. 1 It is true
that the difficulties which confront the authorities are not easy to
resolve. In any particular case the question has to be answered
as to whether the phenomena are diabolic or divine : whether in
fact they come from Heaven or from Hell. This was always the
pitfall into which the unwary were accustomed to be trapped.
Mysticism, and the phenomena which often accompanied it, were
not manifestations of religious sanctity of which the Church was
inclined to approve. Much of it seemed to be too independent,
and possibly heresy was to be scented therein. How was it possible
to determine whether any particular mystic, with his accompanying
ecstacies and raptures, was deriving these gifts from God as a
result of his divine communion, or was in reality drawing his
powers from a diabolic source, perhaps as a result of a pact made

1 Mgr. Ronald Knox has stated that Roman Catholics do not " resent scientific
investigation into our stories of miracles," but rather, " we welcome it " (Miracles,
London, 1927, p. 24). Perhaps, however, the phenomena themselves are not
included under ' the stones."

some HUMAN oddities

w ith (he Evil One iii days gone by ? That most Christian doctor,
the great jean Gerson (i 363-1429), had tried to draw up a list of
rules on the matter before the close of the fifteenth century. Others
have followed, but the problem shows little sign of being fully
solved. To the convinced Catholic the phenomenon of levitation
is a miracle, divine or diabolic ; and its origin must be sought in
the details of the ethical pattern of each individual life in which
it is reported. In the case of mediums, the fact that they demon-
strate their powers, instead of trying to hide them from the outside
world, is a circumstance which condemns them unreservedly in the
eyes of the believing Catholic. To him, as to the mystics of the
Orient, these miraculous powers are not for display, but are the
mere accompaniments of certain aspects of a life devoted to com-
munion with the divine.

Nevertheless, it has to be admitted that it is possible for
Catholics to be totally unable to distinguish the divine from the
diabolic in a number of instances. Take the case of Magdalena
de la Cruz, who was born in 1487 and died in 1560. Writing
about 1545, Francisco de Enzinas, or Dryander as he is often called,
the translator of the New Testament into Spanish, and at one
time a Professor of Greek at Cambridge, says something about her
in his memoirs. She was so religious, he declares, that her piety
excited discussion and comment throughout the whole of Spain.
Whatever she said was treated as an oracle : whatever she did
seemed to have a divine origin. Her influence and example led
several scions of noble families to the cloister ; whilst Cardinals,
Inquisitors and even the Empress Isabel herself, were eager to
show her honour and ask her advice. As to her ecstasies and
raptures they were known far beyond the limits of the monastery
at Cordova, where she wore the Franciscan habit and held the
position of Abbess. Sometimes on feast-days it was said that she
was to be seen rapt and floating in the air some three or possibly
four feet above the ground. She declared that she had conceived
and brought forth the infant Jesus, who had actually played with
her and she with him. She was clairvoyant, and knew the sins

ST. JOSliPH Ol- COPERTINO : THE FRIAR WHO ['LEW 33

ol the novices before they had confessed them to her ; and on
Other occasions she told priests that they were celebrating Mass in
.1 .'.tale of mortal sin. She materialized cherries when they were
nut of season, and transformed rotten ones into fresh ones merely
by washing them. Again, when she dropped eggs on the ground
1 1 u y did not break, which was thought to be a miracle in itself.

In 1543 the saintly Abbess fell sick and seemed likely to die.
I ler confession, however, was not that which might have been
expected. Seized by convulsions, she poured forth a story which
reduced her audience to a state of horrified immobility, and which
was subsequently investigated by the authorities down to the last
detail.

According to Magdalena she had been controlled by a demon
.nice she was about five years old. It was this evil spirit who had
I aught her how to feign sanctity and ecstasies ; how to appear to
refrain from all food, and how to simulate the wounds of Jesus
( Jurist upon her own body. When she was twelve she made a
pact with this demon, who was called Balban. He appeared to
her in various forms. Sometimes it was a bull ; at other times a
Negro. On still other occasions Balban put on the semblance of
an angel, or even arrived as St. Francis or St. Jerome. Another of
her attendant demons was called Patonio, and it was these who
whispered the secrets of the lives of penitents in her ears, and who
enabled her to perform the miracles which had been observed as
occurring during her raptures.

Having made her confession, Magdalena did not die but, the
facts having been investigated, she was sent to another convent
under strict discipline and there she died in 1560 at Andujar.

It might have been thought by those unversed in the political
intrigues and jealousies of the various monastic orders of the
Roman Catholic Church that the frauds of Magdalena de la Cruz,
if such they were, might have been unveiled before she was,
seemingly, on the point of departing this life. It might well be
asked what would have happened if she had suddenly been killed
in an accident, or had been let drop from a great height by Balban

\4 SOMIi HUMAN (>I)I)I j ir.s

or Pttonio when one or other of them hid raised her from the
ground during one of her diabolic raptures. It was not always
that exposure came at what was supposed to be a death-bed repent-
ance. At times the frauds could scarcely be concealed. Take the
case of Maria de la Visitacion, whose miracles were long the talk
of many in Portugal, where she was living at the Convent of the
Anunciada in Lisbon towards the year 1584. Born about four
years before Magdalena's death, she had a rather similar childhood,
although it does not seem that she pleaded any extreme diabolic
interference with her personal affairs. Hard soap and hot water
sufficed to remove her stigmata, since they were due to a less severe
device than the caustic which San Maria Patrocinio employed
over two hundred years later. When she was asked to explain the
brilliance which illuminated her face during her raptures, or the
methods she used to simulate her levitations, her answers were
direct and to the point. Thus in order to light up her face she
used a chafing-dish in which a small flame was burning, the light
from which was reflected on to her face by means of a simple
looking-glass. Similarly her elevation from the ground, when in
supposed ecstasy in her cell, was easily managed. All she had to
do was to put on high-soled shoes, 1 or if these proved insufficient,
to stand upon pieces of wood with which she had provided herself
for just such an effect. Indeed, it was as simple as that.

If the modern reader, who is not committed to any theological
beliefs regarding divine and diabolic mysticism, runs through the
lives of these queer servants of God, he cannot fail to be absorbed
by the amazing mixture to be found therein. Here there is quite
clearly to be found psychosis and neurosis, hysteria and hallucination,
sly opportunism and downright imposture. But apart from all
these factors, which doubtless sometimes played their part, there
were others of a type which has led so many of these wonder-workers
to become beatified and canonized by the Church to which they
dedicated so much of their lives. With many of them the physical

1 These chapins, as they were called, sometimes had cork or wooden soles a
root high.

ST. JOSliPH Ol COPURTINO : Tills 1RIAR WHO ll.liW $5

phenomena, which accompanied their raptures, were neither prayed
for nor encouraged. Rarely does it seem that ecstasies like those
11I St, Joseph of Copertino were used to provide visitors with thrills,
M quite clearly seems to have been the case when the Saint was
(old to meet the Admiral of Castile and his retinue ; or when
I >ominic of Jesus-Mary was said to have floated in the air before
Philip II of Spain and some members of his court in 1601. More
usually are such wonders reserved for close associates ; although in
the case of some of the Catholic saints it can hardly be doubted
that the phenomena were utilized for purposes of publicity in
order to spread abroad the fame of the monastery housing the
ecstatic, thus gaining financial and other advantages.

With regard to Joseph of Copertino we do not know enough
to obtain any clear picture of his psychological make-up. Certainly
(he accounts of his childhood, lack of education and later mental
development suggest that he was not far from what to-day we
.should call a state of feeble-mindedness ; 1 and from the physical
point of view he can hardly be considered a healthy person. When
(he Custos at Grottella heard of his austerities, he went to see him
one day in his cell. " What are you doing standing there like a
voting pig." he asked Joseph, " lift up your habit." At this
command Joseph was confused, since to obey meant that he had
to reveal his hair-shirt, so he asked the Custos to excuse him.

Ah," he replied, "you are not going to obey? Then through
holy obedience to my wishes I order you to undress." Joseph
could now hardly refuse to comply, so he took off his monastic
habit, appearing only in his hair-shirt. But the Guardian now told
him to take this off also so as to strip completely. It was then
seen the state to which Joseph had reduced himself. He was
wearing chains and a metal plate, and his body was macerated and
afflicted with sores. Thereupon the Superior forbade Joseph to
wear these instruments of torture, and the chain, to which bits of
flesh were attached, was taken away, together with the iron plate

1 Bishop Bonaventura Claver said that he was idiota, meaning completely
untaught.

■iOMIi HUMAN 0|>l>l riHS

which had been pressed against the bleeding and festering surface
of some sore spot on the Saint's body. It was hardly likely that
the sores would heal properly considering Joseph's diet. As
Bernino says, it was nothing less than one long fast. For five
years he did not touch bread, his meals, as has already been said,
consisting of herbs, a few dried fruits or baked beans without salt,
over which he sprinkled his bitter powder, which is said to have
resembled pepper in colour, and which was once apparently mis-
taken for such by some religious belonging to the monastery.
Before Mass, which he celebrated every morning, Joseph appeared
pale and weak, but after having communicated he became ruddy
of face and lively in body.

From these accounts it could hardly be maintained that Joseph
was a healthy person ; and the records of his dreams and hallucina-
tions do not suggest that his mortifications and penances were
particularly successful in their object.

As to his levitations and other apparent miracles what is there
to be said ? The evidence is available and can either be accepted
or rejected. Whatever view the orthodox Roman Catholic may
take of the levitation of the Saints, he must, it would seem, hold
some view as to the explanation of the purely physical problem
involved. It is true that some Catholic authorities on mysticism
make a few suggestions as to how the body is raised, and what
sustains it when suspended. But these ideas are not supported, as
far as I am aware, by any experimental procedure which could be
applied in the circumstances. The majority of Catholic writers
are content to regard the levitations of the Saints as " miracles,"
which are certainly opposed to what we know of natural laws. As
to the levitation of mediums and demoniacs, the general Catholic
view appears to be that it is due to diabolic intervention, whatever
that may mean.

From the scientific, as opposed to the theological point of view,
the position is equally unsatisfactory. Although the levitation of
mediums has been reported for many years, there has been no serious
and competent investigation of the occurrence ; and with the

ST. JOSEPH OF COPERTINO : THE FRIAR WHO FLEW \J

mi l easing rarity of the phenomenon it does not seem very likely
ili.it the opportunity will present itself in the near future. Saints
do not seem to fly as they used to do ; and at the moment of
writing I do not know of a' single medium who can claim to present
i Ins manifestation under even moderately satisfactory conditions.
( iertainly there have been few at any time who could in any way
equal the levitations and aerial flights of that venerable Servant of
* rod, Saint Joseph of Copertino.

CHAPT E R T W O

JAMES ALLEN : THE MAN WHO WAS NOT

A FEW years before the beginning of the nineteenth century a
bedstead maker, one John Naylor, was living in rather poor
circumstances in London, in Mint Street, Borough. Although he
could ill afford the luxury of children, his quiver was not without
them, and when little Abigail arrived he regarded her rather as a
later source of income than as a welcome addition to the family,
especially as her mother soon afterwards died to join Him who
had sent her the unwanted babe.

In spite of the poverty of the household in which she grew up,
young Abigail seemed to thrive ; and in due course fulfilled at
least some of her father's hopes, for she entered domestic service,
and, being both cheerful and industrious, found a good job as a
housemaid with a Mr. Ward, who lived at 6 Camberwell Terrace.

Mr. Ward's prosperous household was very different from the
one she had left. Abigail was not the only member of the domestic
staff, neither was it composed entirely of women. The master
kept horses, and consequently employed a groom and farrier, who
at the time of Abigail's engagement was the smart young James
Allen, who had to come to Mr. Ward from the house of an alderman
with whom he had previously been working.

Eighteen years of age, with a clear ruddy complexion, Allen
possessed all the manners and graces of the accomplished horse-
man ; and the steeds for which he cared were noted far and wide
for their general appearance of well-being, their proudly arched
necks and their sleek and glossy skins. Indeed, as might have
been expected, the young groom was very popular, and was just
such a one on whom many a girl would cast covetous, if not
amorous, eyes. Although not tall (he was but five feet six inches)
Allen presented an elegant appearance in his fawn-coloured coat

88

Hou II

JAMES ALLEN: THB MAN WHO WAS NOT J9

tvitfi its silver lace about the collar, his prim liat with its somewhat
jaunty cockade, and his tightly fitting breeches and highly polished
boots. If the truth must be told, the girls made little pretence
of not desiring him, and to earn an approving smile from the
handsome young man was to excite envy and possibly malice in
I he servants' hall, Abigail and the cook competed for his favours,
and when the contest was decided by the victory of the former,
I he latter vented her spleen and vexation in no uncertain terms.
Indeed, the domestic peace was so far rufHed that calm could not
he restored. The cook saw to it that young Abigail should pay
well for her success, and her methods of doing so made it impossible
for the young girl to remain longer in the same household. She
gave in her notice, and luckily soon secured another position in
Margate. James, furnished with the best of good characters, left
also and soon obtained another job.

It must have been with some trepidation, although doubtless
mingled with joy, that Abigail received a letter from James some
six months later, begging her to come to London so that they
could get married as soon as possible. When she arrived, in
December 1807, she was met by James, who told her that he had
arranged for the wedding to take place at the Church of St. Giles,
Camberwell, and that the ceremony was to be performed that very
month. Abigail was enchanted. At last she was going to be
settled with the man whom she had wanted ever since she had set
eyes on him. By an alliance with one so young, so handsome, and
at the same time so industrious and efficient, her own happiness
was assured. . By his proposal to her, James had proved not
only his love for her, but also his appreciation of her own good
qualities.

On the 13th of December 1807, " James Allen, Batchelor, and
Abigail Nay lor, Spinster," became man and wife according to the
rites and ceremonies of the Church. The happy pair (as the
newspapers would have described them) had agreed that the very
limited time that Abigail could spare from her situation in Margate
was to be passed in the house of a mutual friend in Gray's Inn Lane.

4° SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

On their arrival, however, misfortune awaited them. To their
great annoyance they found that some mistake had been made in
the dates, and that no accommodation had been provided for them.
They had, therefore, to seek lodging elsewhere, and were successful
in finding it in a tavern in the same street, presided over by the
sign of an hospitable Bull.

Their ill-luck, however, was not to end with their disappoint-
ment over the mistake their friend had made about the rooms.
Hardly had they retired when James was taken ill with a violent
stomach-ache and digestive trouble, which he put down to having
eaten something which had disagreed with him. Moreover,
Abigail, having either forgotten in her excitement or miscalculated
her days, was dismayed to discover that her condition demanded
the postponement of that consummation to their love to which
she had for so long looked forward. Her leave of absence from
Margate could not be extended, and thus she returned to her post
as virginal as when she had left it. It is true that she vowed eternal
troth to her spouse, but there is little doubt that she deeply
regretted that her fortress had not yet been stormed and taken by
one with whom she would have so willingly contested it.

After his wife's departure, James looked around for a new job.
At last he found one in the house of a gentleman at Blackheath,
and when he was finally settled he wrote to Abigail telling her
that, when it became feasible, he would arrange to meet her so
that their married life might begin. Weeks went by, however,
and she heard nothing more. What must have been her con-
sternation when she received a letter from James saying that she
must not leave her situation on any account as he was on the point
of sailing for the East Indies. Moreover, he had given her no
address to which she could write, and inquiries by her friends in
London had proved fruitless. It seemed possible that fames had
passed out of her life.

Months went by and nothing was heard of James Allen. Abigail
had given up any hopes of seeing him again. She was a deserted
wife. She was more than that. She was deserted before she had

JAMES AI.I.KN : THE MAN WHO WAS NO 1' 41

had the opportunity to enjoy those fruits of her marriage which
she had so long desired.

One day in July of the following year she received a shock. A
letter arrived from James, her " loving husband till death " as he
described himself, and in it he begged her to give notice immediately,
asked her forgiveness for his disappearance, and told her to come
CO London when her period of service had expired, so that they
could both at last enjoy the home that he had prepared.

It was on 12th August 1808 that Mrs. Allen arrived in London.
She was shocked at the change that had come over her husband.
Instead of the fine young man whom she had left, he now pre-
sented himself in the shape of a rough-looking cowman in the
service of Mr. Ford, a dairyman in Bermondsey. Although he was
now poor and apparently no longer able to keep up the same smart
appearance as formerly, James had acquired some tolerable lodgings
in Swan Lane, Rotherhithe, to which Abigail accompanied him
when she arrived in the city from the coast.

Having finally settled in her new home, Abigail looked forward
to a period of happiness and contentment. But she was again
doomed to disappointment. No longer was James the debonair
young buck she had once known, upright and gay with sprightly
mien and affable smile. Experience of the world seemed to have
hardened him. He no longer seemed to be attracted by Abigail,
whose presence sometimes seemed actually distasteful to him. It
was clear to his wife that James was ill ; and she forgave him all,
whilst swallowing her own chagrin and acute discontent. The
be ginning of a life together scarcely seemed to be auspicious.

However bad and inattentive a husband James may have been,
his capacity for business could not be denied. It was not long
before he left the service of the dairy and his position as cowman,
and took a job down in the docks. He worked as a pitch-boiler
both for Peter Mistieres and Brandram and Co. of 17 Size Lane,
Queen Street. The work was heavy, but the pay was tolerable
and perquisites were not infrequent. At about this time the pair
were living at 52 Albion Street, Rotherhithe, and with James's

42 SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

wages and the extras he hronghl in they managed pretty well on
about two pounds a week. He w.is popular at the docks, but,
although he both smoked and chewed tobacco, his avoidance of
alcohol caused some comment among his friends and companions,
who were accustomed to foregather in the taverns along the water-
front.

It was not long before Allen left his job at the docks and took
another at the Board of Ordnance, from which he soon passed to
yet another in a chemical factory in the Commercial Road. He
speedily became a general favourite in the works, and the job was
so congenial that he remained in it for about two and a half years.
Regular employment and good food had brought back the colour
to his cheeks and the sparkle to his eyes, and his youthful appearance
made some of the more knowing hands raise their eyebrows,
suspecting that he was a pansy, or as they used to say in those
days, a " molly." One day there was a little trouble at the factory :
one of the bolder workmen, wishing to test his theory, assaulted
James, who, however, resisted with such energy and cried for help
so loudly that the attempt failed, and his assailant sneaked off in
ignominy.

One incident of this sort was enough for James. He resolved
to leave his work in the chemical factory and return to th*e docks,
whilst at the same time he determined to become the tenant of a
small country inn, which Abigail could manage and thus increase
the family budget by their united efforts. Having consulted the
usual advertising channels they found what they wanted ; and so
in 1816 James found himself the tenant of the Sun Inn, in Baldock,
Hertfordshire. Nothing could have suited Abigail better. Here
she was able to prove her industry, frugality and thrift. Business
prospered, for the villagers liked both the inn and its tenants, and
in about eighteen months they had saved some seventy or eighty
pounds.

Again, however, ill-luck awaited them. One day the inn was
entered by burglars, and all their hard-earned savings were stolen.
They could not pay their rent and were sold up, and it was not

James allbn : thb man who wan not 43

long before they were back in Rotherhithc. James soon found a
good job. He was engaged by a firm of shipbuilders and did all
the work required of him, climbing the rigging, attending to the
sails and even going to the yard-arm when necessary. This ex-
hausting work took much of his strength, and in order to fortify
himself he began to drink porter, although he rarely exceeded a
fiint a day. His nature, too, was changing. He was no longer
the gay companion and happy-go-lucky fellow of earlier days. He
was becoming moody, suspicious and gloomy. Indeed, Abigail
used to think that he preferred even the cat to herself, for every
day, as he went to and from work, he used to collect scraps of
lood which had to be prepared and given to the animal when James
got home.

One day Abigail, who had been to Greenwich on business,
found on her return home that the house in which she and James
had been lodging was shut up and apparently deserted. Inquiries
at the firm where James had been employed elicited the information
that he had left some time previously, a fact of which Abigail had
been kept in ignorance. She had no idea what she ought to do.
Acting on the advice of her friends, and with their help, the door
of the house was forced, and it became immediately apparent that
James had decamped, taking everything of value with him. His
wife, however, was not the person to let an event of this kind
destroy her confidence and initiative. She soon turned her deft
fingers to a new trade, and became a sewing-hand, making bonnets
and muslin capes, an occupation in which her previous experience
with the needle gave her a tolerable skill.

After an absence of over a fortnight James suddenly turned
up ; but this time Abigail had had enough of this kind of life,
and she tried to turn him out of the room with her large pair of
scissors. He grappled with her, and did his best to pull the scissors
from her hands, but the excitement proved too much for him,
and he fainted away. When he revived, Abigail's anger had sub-
sided ; and after he had told her that he now had plenty of money,
she received him back into favour.

44 SOME human ODDITIES

Their former mode of life was now resumed. James got a
position with R. H. and J. Nash, the barge builders in Upper Fore
Street, Lambeth, and he soon became as popular as ever, since all
his old charm came back once he was in a well-paid and congenial
occupation. His reputation as a smart workman spread ; and it
was not long before another firm of shipwrights, Messrs. Closs and
Kauf, offered him a job at a higher wage than that he was then
receiving. He at once accepted it, and remained with the same
firm for seven years.

James was never very strong, and the work in the yards was
hard and exacting. Even whilst he was still with Nash he had
had to ask for some months off, and his illness during this time
had caused Abigail grave anxiety. She had nursed him devotedly,
and his needs and treatment had been attended to by three doctors,
including the official physician attached to the Benefit Society to
which James paid his dues.

Although he was happy in the job which he had taken over
after leaving the Nash yards, James was never one to stay in the
same position indefinitely. He moved on, and this time took work
with the firm of Thomas Crisp and Co., the shipbuilders, mast and
blockmakers, at Dock Head. Here again he was successful : his
work in the docks had so strengthened his muscles that he was often
employed on some of the most trying jobs, such as carrying men
out to ships lying off the quays, and wading in thick and clinging
mud on the' river banks.

In January 1829 the couple were living on the first floor of a
house in East Lane, Rotherhithe. James was in steady employment,
although now on the wrong side of forty : his wife was but a
few years younger. The routine of their life seemed firmly
established. Neither knew that disaster was just round the corner.

One day James and another labourer, William Shrieve, were
working in a sawpit out in Crisp's yards. A huge fir log was
being cut, James working at it from below and Shrieve from
above. Through some miscalculation a heavy piece fell into the
pit, and James was immediately struck down by it. Medical aid

JAMES ALLEN : THE MAN WHO WAS NOT 45

was instantly summoned, but the unfortunate man was beyond all
help. He was at once taken to St. Thomas's Hospital, but died
on the way. Abigail was informed as soon as was possible ; and
later the staff at the hospital had to let her know that her husband
was dead when he arrived. But they had to tell her something
else. James Allen was a woman.

As can well be imagined, the case excited, as the newspapers
of the day expressed it, " an unusual ferment in the gossiping
world." The inquest, which was held by Thomas Shelton, the
London coroner, was sensational. William Shrieve deposed that,
on 1 2th January 1829, he had been working with the deceased in a
sawpit in Mill Street when a piece of the fir log fell on Allen's
head : and in this statement he was supported by the medical
testimony, which was to the effect that the skull had been fractured
in several places. It was stated that the body was that of a well
nourished woman, with no abnormality of any kind. The upper
part of the body was, however, found to be swathed in tight
bandages ; and it was revealed at the inquest by one Jane Daley
that Abigail had once confided to her that she did not think that
her husband was what she called " a proper man."

Although it was clear that there was a general desire to probe
further into the mysterious circumstances of Allen's life, the
coroner kept to the business in hand, and a verdict of accidental
death was returned.

The matter, however, was not allowed to end there. On
17th January 1829 the funeral took place, which was conducted by
Mr. Butler, an undertaker from Dock Head. An immense crowd
attended. The body was deposited in a vault in a private burial
ground at St. John's, Bermondsey ; and precautions were taken to
prevent the malign activities of the resurrection men. Abigail
was, of course, present, and seemed in deep distress. She was,
indeed, in trouble, for rumours had been spread abroad that she
herself was really a man, and that the whole affair was a hoax in
execrable taste. People shouted at her when she went out : her
house was beset by gaping sightseers, who hoped by peering

,| 6 SOME 111 (MAN ODDITI US

through cracks in doors or windows to confirm or deny the sus-
picions that were rife. It was even said that the Good Samaritan
Benefit Society had refused to assist her, but this was officially
denied. Finally, in order to dispel the rumours and gain peace
of mind for herself, Abigail went to a friendly magistrate, Mr.
G. R. Minshull of Bow Street, and there she signed the following
affidavit :

I, Abigail Allen, residing at No. 32 East Lane, Rotherhithe, do hereby
make oath I was married to a person named James Allen, at St. Giles's
Church, Camberwell, on the 13th of December, 1807, and that I
resided with him as his wife, and that during that period I was
entirely ianorant of the fact of the said James Allen being a female,
until that circumstance was communicated to me by the woman who
undressed the body after death.

(Signed) Abigail Allen.

Gradually the gossip died away. Abigail was only just forty. She
had still time to find another mate, but whether she did so or not
I cannot say. Diligent search in the yellowing and chipping leaves
of the London and provincial Press has so far yielded no further
news of her. Somewhere, perhaps, there is a notice to the effect
that Abigail Allen (or was it Naylor ?) was married, this time we
hope to "a proper man." However that may be, she was not
likely to forget her life with that oddest of odd transvestites, 1
James Allen, the man who was not.

What was the mystery behind the life and activities of James
Allen ? We shall never know. Her case presents features of
great interest to the student of transvestism, but this is not the
place to discuss them. Her life had none of the glamour that had
filled the careers of so many of the famous female transvestites of
history, and was, generally speaking, rather drab and humdrum,
very different from the lives of those of her kind who, in the past,
had donned male clothing and fought in the wars. Very often,
however, these people have had physical peculiarities which some-
times made their sex difficult to determine. For example, there was
Elvira de Cespedes in the sixteenth century, who first of all was

1 A transvestitt is a technical term for a man wearing woman's clothes or vice
versa.

) AMIi.S AI.LHN : Till' MAN WHO WAS NOT 47

taken for a woman, married and had a child. Later, however, she
seemed to become more masculine : she began to dress as a man,
and conducted numerous amorous exploits which caused much talk
and many rumours. She proposed to a girl, but her sex was
questioned and an inquiry instituted. The Vicar of Madrid
declared that she was a man ; but the denunciations against her
were so insistent that the Inquisition heard of it, and made an
independent examination. The result was that she was declared a
female, and it was also stated that her career was clearly due to
demonic influence. She was given two hundred lashes and
sentenced to serve in a hospital for some ten years. We are not
told, I think, what the patients thought about it.

The same miserable uncertainty dogged the life of Anne
Grandjean, who lived in the first half of the eighteenth century.
She began by being called a girl, then a boy, and then back to a
girl again. Finally she did not know what she was. All she did
know was that she preferred women to men in spite of what all
her friends were saying about her. In the end it was decreed that
she was a woman, and nothing that Anne could say or do made
any difference.

In some cases it is not easy to decide what reliance is to be
placed upon the tales of daring and heroism that cluster around
these queer characters. Take Mary Moders as an example. She
was said to have had the most incredible career in the seventeenth
century, and was sometimes called " the Female Hector, or the
German Lady turned Monsieur." She was a rogue and a cheat,
and passed herself off in all manner of disguises, one of her
" notable pranks and cunning deceits," as a tract about her puts
it, being to announce, during one of her change-overs to female
dress, that she was the daughter of a great German prince, and
that her real name was Maria de Vulva.

Mary Ann Talbot was another adventuress, this time at the
end of the eighteenth century. She dressed as a man, called herself
John Taylor, and acted as a drummer, a cabin-boy and a sailor.
But her secret was never entirely hidden, since it appears that she

.|K SOME HUMAN ODDI HI'S

had originally donned malt; attire in order to elope with her lover,
and that when the latter had been killed she had continued the
disguise as a matter of convenience.

Catalina de Erauso, who was born at the end of the sixteenth
century, seems never to have doubted that she ought to have been
a man. Well set-up, she had marked feminine characteristics, but
she was successful in hiding them ; and her career as a man led
her into the wildest adventures both military and otherwise. Like
St. Joseph of Copertino (see p. 13) she was received by Pope
Urban VIII, who is said to have given her some sensible advice
and did not insist on her changing back into female garb. In the
account of her exploits, as written by herself, she says very little
about any love affairs she may have had. Indeed, it would seem
that she never had any with any man, but rather preferred to
indulge in trifling flirtations with other women, who, unaware of
her sex, did not disdain her attentions. Twice it appears did she
get into trouble on this account. On one occasion she was turned
out of her job, as her employer caught her tickling the ankles of
his sister ; on another, her own brother (whom she later killed)
thought that she had designs on his mistress, which was not
difficult to understand considering that he had not the remotest
idea that his fellow-soldier was a woman and least of all his own
sister. Catalina must have been a rollicking and buoyant kind of
person, as quick with her tongue as with her rapier, and certainly
not one whom, in those days, it was wise to contradict too flatly.
Of all the female transvestites in history she was, perhaps, the
wildest and the most turbulent.

Then there was Maximiliana von Leithorst, who died in Wiener
Neustadt on 29th August 1748. After her birth (which was
illegitimate) her mother took the veil, and the child, left to the
none too tender mercies of a hard world, resolved as early as her
fourteenth year to renounce her sex and live as a man. She donned
male attire and betook herself to Regensburg, passing under the
name of Baron von Leithorst. In Regensburg she became very
friendly with an elderly but unmarried Countess von Welz, who

jamhs au.hn : thi; man win.) was not 49

possessed a large fortune with which she performed many charitable
works. This lady so arranged matters in favour of her protege"
that Maximiliana was accepted as a cadet in a Lothringian regiment,
and with this unit she served seven years, taking part in the
Turkish campaign. Her courage was so striking and her success
so marked that she hoped that she would reach the rank of officer ;
and her pleasant appearance was such that she received many
amourous proposals from a number of female admirers. In order
more effectually to conceal her sex she became engaged to a young
lady, but her plans went somewhat awry for she became ill and
had a hard struggle to conceal her condition from the army surgeon.
It seems that she was an unruly patient as the chief surgeon himself
paid her a visit, and she was forced to divulge her secret to him,
begging him to respect it and not to expose her and put her to
shame before her regiment. He advised her to leave military
service, which she did, having attained her coveted goal of officer
rank.

On leaving the army she continued to wear men's clothes and
even at times the uniform of her former regiment, renouncing it
only when she approached the Lord's Table. After some time,
however, misfortune overtook her. She contracted cancer of the
breast, which caused her not only physical suffering of an extreme
kind, but a mental conflict of great intensity. She bore her
sufferings with an exemplary patience, but her condition was
hopeless. She died at the early age of forty-four.

In 1728 a curious case came to light in Malmo in Sweden. The
daughter of a peasant had, it seems, run away from her parents :
seven years afterwards it was discovered that she had been living
as a man, and had joined an artillery unit, acting as a kind of
handyman without any of her comrades having the least idea that
she was not one of themselves. She then married the daughter of
another farmer, but somehow the story got around that she was a
woman in man's clothes, and the couple fled to Norway, after
which history seems to be silent.

Then there was Hannah Snell, who was born in Worcester in

JO SOMIi HUMAN ODDITIHS

172$, ten years alter the equally famous Phoebe 1 lessel, and who,
when she was scarcely ten years of age, declared that she would
be a soldier. She relented somewhat when she met a Dutch sailor
who took her fancy and whom she afterwards married. He soon
deserted her, and after his disappearance she put on a man's clothes,
called herself James Gray, and enlisted in the army where she had
a number of surprising adventures. After a time she deserted and
enlisted as a marine, going off to the East Indies on a sloop-of-war,
and proving herself very useful. Moreover, she joined in various
warlike operations, covering herself with glory, but unfortunately
she got wounded in the groin. Refusing any medical assistance,
she extracted the bullet herself and, according to report, actually-
recovered. Returning to England she resumed female attire, and
told the story of her military exploits which, it is said, resulted in
her being given a pension during the remainder of her life, which
came to an end in 1779.

The desire that some women have to dress as men is not always
associated with physical as well as with mental abnormalities.
Many such examples are still being recorded in the Press. For
example, in August 1916, a foreman, for whom an employer
appealed at a tribunal on the ground of indispensability, was
found to be a woman. In April 1932 it was discovered that a
woman in Glasgow had been working as a man in a local factory.
She had married another woman, and in the register of the Sherifl
Court had described herself as " a widower." On examination it
was revealed that, like James Allen, she was a normal, healthy-
woman as regards all her physical characteristics. In July of the
same year a young man was charged with theft at Teddington.
No one seems to have had the slightest suspicion that this smart
young fellow was a girl. Admiral Smith-Dorrien thought that he
was quite a delightful fellow, and christened him " Jack Tar."
He smoked, played a good game of billiards, belonged to a men's
club and kept company with a local young woman. The following
month another case came into prominence, which has some striking
points of resemblance with that of James Allen. At Astor Magna,

JAMliS ALI.I-N : llll- MAN WHO WAS NOT ^ 1

in Gloucestershire, there died a woman who for upwards of twenty
years had been known as a man. She had worked as a timber-
haulier and on a coal wharf, smoked a clay pipe, and completely
deceived the physician who attended her during an illness which
lasted fifteen months.

In 1943 it was disclosed in Chicago that a popular child
photographer, who was married to the daughter of an Akron
physician, was really a woman who had been posing as a man for
eleven years. Before entering the photographic business she had
had various jobs, such as a truck driver, a gang boss and the pro-
prietor of a construction company. When she married, it was
some months before her secret was discovered by her wife, and
then the pair decided they would remain together, as at that time
they were operating the business as a joint concern. Trouble only
arose when the Akron physician suspected that something was
wrong when he was refused admission to his daughter, who was
about to have a baby, the said infant having been bought by the
crafty pair on the instalment system for one dollar down. Somehow
I can scarcely imagine Abigail and James Allen going so far as that.

CHAPTER THREE

BERBIGUIER : BOTTLER OF SPIRITS

Among the terrors of the unknown, which have for so many
centuries haunted mankind, the fear of demons is, perhaps, one of
the most awful and the most shocking. The whole tragedy of
witchcraft was bound up with it : theories of possession and
obsession have the belief as their central core. Satan and his
angels hovered over the world holding a kind of standing com-
mission from God, who thus was able to authorize them to exercise
their diabolic practices upon the souls and bodies of suffering
humanity.

When I was a child I was instructed in the demonology of the
Christian religion by a priest, who was disturbed to discover that
at that time I had not realized the number of demons who were
operating in the world. I had not read, for example, the Rev.
Joseph Young's Demonology (Edinburgh, 1856), where it is said that
their number may exceed " not only the aggregate of one generation,
but the countless myriads of all the generations of the human
family." The good man then proceeded to inform me that Satan
and his devilish crew, being neither omnipotent nor omnipresent,
had, as it were, to divide up their work and direct their energies
into the most appropriate channels. Thus Satan himself con-
centrated upon the saints, since they fell into sin only under the
most diabolic and subtle provocation. The ordinary person was
attended by devils of quite a low category. I was assured that
mine were mere beginners, so easy was it to lead me astray.

Whatever may be thought of these ideas, it seems to me that
the believing Christian, whether he belongs to the Roman Catholic
Church or not, can scarcely dismiss the subject as a superstition
that has no place in the modern world. The famous Bull of Pope
Innocent VIII, which was issued in Rome in 1484, can hardly

KEKKKiUIEIl : BOTTLER Oh SPIRITS Si

I, nl to indicate what he thought was happening in Europe ; and
there is no doubt that his pronouncement did much to forward
the persecution of the witches by whose evil machinations the
produce of the earth was blasted, foul diseases inflicted upon men
and animals, and even more unpleasant effects produced through
the abandonment of both men and women to the power of evil.
How far the Bull is one which must be literally believed is a matter
to be left to the professional theologians, who have, I suspect,
often wrangled about it. The Protestant is no whit better off than
his Catholic brother, for the belief in demons was part of the
Christian faith, and Catholic and Protestant alike had to conform
to it or be considered suspect. Even that learned nonconformist
divine, Richard Gilpin (1625-1700), who held also a medical
degree, published a long work on Satan's temptations, called
Demonologia Sacra, in which he shows quite clearly how the devilish
designs of the Prince of Darkness are plainly described for all to
read in the pages of Holy Scripture. Similarly, the position was
quite plainly set forth in 1931 by that eminent schoolmaster and
divine, the Rev. Hon. Edward Lyttelton, of Eton and Trinity
College, Cambridge, whose knowledge of young people must be
considerable since he has been Headmaster of both Haileybury and
Eton, not to speak of being a member of a Consultative Committee
to the Board of Education. He says that no dogma exists which
it is more impossible to disprove than the existence and activity of
evil spirits, adding that it is the subconscious region to which Satan
has access and that no more favourable battlefield could be chosen
than the bedroom. 1 Some eleven years later, another authority on
demons, Mr. Charles S. Lewis, and this time from Magdalen
College, Oxford, gave us the results of his inquiries in The Scrcwtapc
Letters, a satire in which we are treated to the exploits and methods
of Wormwood, Screwtape, Glubose, Slubgab, Toadpipe and
Slumtrimpet, although how far Mr. Lewis believes in these entities
[ am not prepared to guess.

Perhaps one of the most curious modern productions dealing in

1 Whither ? (London, 1931), p. 102.

',.) SOMli HUMAN ODDIl'lliS

part vvilli the domestic economy oi 1 lell is that contributed by the
author of a book published as late as 1944 in Colorado Springs.
This volume purports to give an approved version of how the
worlds were made, the Almighty having given the author His
direct sanction through " His miraculous change of the wording of
the sound tracks of public motion pictures," a procedure which, I
confess, I do not clearly understand. In the formation of the
infernal regions it is said that God subdivided Hell into small
rooms and corridors, but two sections were not so divided, these
being Procyon Hell and Alphard Hell. Satan lives in the first,
but Alphard Hell is vacant. Oxygen is supplied to these rooms
by the Almighty, who made " a large invisible steel tank provided
with a threaded invisible steel plug," together with the necessary
pipes. Satan, however, escaped from Procyon Hell " into Jayess,"
and then started " slowly east along the nearly elliptical corridor."
This move was, however, frustrated by " the Angel Karl, Whose
Me was in Alphecca Heaven." This is all rather involved ; and
I cannot help thinking that not a few experts in demonology would
be better advised to think twice before recording their theories in
books.

However that may be, and apart altogether from these somewhat
abstruse theories, we have clearly to bear in mind that the problem
above all others that has occupied the minds of demonologists is
how to get rid of the devils and prevent them from exercising
their unholy arts and fascinations. Exorcisms have long been
considered efficacious, although Mr. Lewis seems to favour jeering
and mocking, since he quotes both Luther and Thomas More to
this effect. The chief difficulty would seem to have been to control
the demon once it was expelled, since it was well known that once
a person had had a demon driven out of him he was in danger of
attacks by the same devil, sometimes in company with others, and
thus the last state of the sufferer was worse than the first. For,
having been driven out, the demon was said to wander about in
dry places, roaring like a lion and seeking whom he might devour.
This partiality for dry places and seeming hydrophobia on the

bi:rbigujer : bottu;r oi spirits ^

part oi demons may, perhaps, be connected with the story of the
Gadarene swine, or with other tales where demons are cast into
the sea. The fact that demons could enter into animals (who, for
I heir part, could hardly be suspected of entering into any diabolical
compact with even the least of Satan's myrmidons) long caused
much heart-searching among learned theologians and ecclesiastical
scholars. For centuries animals were tried for their misdeeds in
ecclesiastical courts, and even moles, leeches and insects were hailed
before the law to answer for their crimes. Indeed, in the fourteenth
century, one poor old sow was led off to punishment dressed up in
vest, drawers and a pair of gloves ; at other times caterpillars had
to be dealt with severely by the priests. But the problem of dis-
posal of the demons had still to be solved. If a method could be
discovered whereby they could be shut up, or, even better, sealed
in containers, then their activities might be successfully curtailed.

Of all the magicians who learnt how to control the spirits
Solomon was the greatest, since it was God Himself who had made
the jinn subject unto him. When he wanted work to be done it
was the jinn who did it for him ; when he wanted to visit far-off
lands it was the jinn who carried him thither. Moreover, it was
Solomon who shut up demons in a bottle, and he was also credited
with enclosing them in sealed urns and burying them deep in the
ground. Not until the eighteenth century was another to use this
method on a large scale and, by thus catching and bottling the
evil spirits, to save France from many and dire calamities. To
those among us, therefore, who are troubled by the attacks of
Satan's host, let me recommend a study of the life and work of
Alexis Vincent Charles Berbiguier, the Scourge of Demons, who
knew more about the devil than most of us, and was actually the
recipient of infernal correspondence, signed on one occasion by
His Excellency, the secretary, Mr. Pinchichi Pinchi.

Some sixteen miles from Avignon, in the department of Vaucluse,
stands the manufacturing town of Carpentras, and it was here
towards 1764 (or 1776 as some authorities state) that Berbiguier
was born. He was cousin to Benoit T. Berbiguier, the musician.

56 somi: HUMAN ODDITlliS

It seems that hardly anything is known of his early life. His
mother was either unable or unwilling to feed him herself, and he
was sent out to nurse ; his health was seriously affected, and for
the first nine years of his life he was partially crippled, the medical
men consulted being inclined to give him up as incurable, a fact
that the young patient .did not fail to remember. It seems that
it was during this period of his life that Berbiguier began to suspect
some kind of persecution, a delusion that was apparently increased
by a law-suit in which his family was engaged and by the inability
of the doctors both in Carpentras and Avignon to do anything to
improve his physical condition. Berbiguier's ideas of persecution
early began to crystallize around the theory that his troubles were
only indirectly due to poor nursing or inefficient medical attention :
to him something more was clearly necessary in order to explain
his misfortunes and continued ill-health. Hence, the belief that
demons were responsible came early to Berbiguier, although we
have no record that he ever attended a school where the headmaster
had taught his pupils that it was in their bedrooms that the devils
most often preferred to wanton.

Whatever may have been the cause of Berbiguier's imaginings,
once the idea had taken root it began to spread at an increasingly
alarming rate. Towards the end of the century he moved from
Carpentras to Avignon ; and it seems that there he was foolish
enough to attend a kind of seance at which a girl, Mansotte by
name, officiated as seer. Tarot cards were produced, and Berbiguier
allowed himself for some reason to be blindfolded during the
course of the sitting. Whatever his motive in attending in
Mansotte's parlour, the effects were catastrophic. That night he
was awakened by noises resembling the roaring of wild beasts.
He immediately got up to investigate, but found nothing, although
further sleep was disturbed by raps on the head of his bed and
other vague and unexplained noises. Berbiguier was seriously
troubled and somewhat alarmed. He could not account for the
sounds, and when he got up next morning he felt bruised and sore
as if he had been beaten all over. Since his uncle was Canon of

BERBIGUIER : BOTTLER OF SPIRITS 57

Sainte Opportune in Paris and he himself was profoundly religious
and reared in a Christian atmosphere, he probably knew what
Holy Scripture said about devils and what the Church taught about
I hem. He thus began to suspect that the demoniacal host might
have been responsible for the infernal racket that had disturbed
his slumbers. Was it not possible, perhaps, that he had heard
how such uproar had disturbed St. Hilarion, and how St. Mary
Magdalene de' Pazzi was sometimes scarcely able to repeat the
Divine Office amidst the din ? Moreover, did not demons cruelly
whip St. Frances of Rome, and create such a noise that others
came hastening into her room to see what was going on ? Hence,
when his landlady tried to soothe him and to attempt to give a
normal explanation of what was, to him, so obviously a super-
normal visitation, Berbiguier would have none of it. Was it
possible, he asked himself, that she herself was possessed ? Was
it possible even that she herself was responsible in some obscure
way for the queer raps and sounds that had made his sleep
impossible ?

The following night was quieter, but it was not long before
Berbiguier was favoured as regards his sight as well as his hearing.
In other words (and with all due respect to those who may differ
from me), I suspect that visual hallucinations followed the earlier
auditory ones. At all events, he began to see the shapes of both
men and animals. It did not seem odd to him that devils came in
the shapes of animals, since he knew that on a certain occasion a
herd of pigs had been thus afflicted, and the lives of the Saints are
full of records of such visitations. Subsequently he proved this to
his own satisfaction, for a devil entered into the body of one of
his own acquaintances, who thereupon appeared before him in the
metamorphosis of a fine porker.

Lights now began to make their appearance. It is true that
other people did not see them, but that was doubtless because they
were insufficiently attuned to the vibrations of the spiritual world.
It was now obvious to Berbiguier that the devils were after him.
That the choice had fallen upon him was indeed an honour ; and

rg SOMI! HUMAN ODPITIKS

when Jesus Christ 1 limsclf appeared before him in a heavenly
vision his cup of joy was full to overflowing. It was he, Charles
Berbiguier, who had been selected for the task of destroying the
evil ones. He must set about his work without further delay. He
had found his vocation.

It was some years, however, before Berbiguier was to find
himself completely immersed in his life's work of demon catching.
For some time he attempted to carry on a fairly normal existence
in Avignon, taking various small jobs such as a clerk in a lottery
office. He is also said to have been treated in a hospital where
the medical staff held views as to the nature of his visions that
differed sharply from those held by the seer himself. Their
efforts on his behalf, however, proved unavailing ; indeed, other
phenomena took place to add to Berbiguier's already extensive
series. Apparitions made themselves seen, and a guitar was
twanged in his bedroom when nobody was near the instrument.
A demon clearly was at work.

The efforts of the doctors merely served to strengthen and
confirm Berbiguier's theories. Demons often came in human
shape : their powers of metamorphosis were unlimited. He went
off to another fortune-teller for a consultation, but the results were
not encouraging and the sitting was a failure. Mediums were
clearly themselves possessed, and here was another instance in
which one had been sent to plague him.

In 1816 Berbiguier went to Paris. It seems that even then he
had a lingering suspicion that just possibly his diagnosis might
be wrong. So he went off to consult the famous alienist, Dr.
Philippe Pinel, who was a pioneer in the treatment of the insane,
recommending kindness instead of a harsh treatment, and who,
about this time was a leading light of the Bicetre Hospital in the
French capital. In accordance with the prevailing ideas Pinel
advised a course of soothing baths (an odd remedy enough,
it seemed to the patient) ; but a priest to whom Berbiguier
also resorted, advised attendance at Divine Service four times
a day.

r.i 11 Bl< ,1 'ii it : B< >TTLEH OV SPI ui 1 S 59

rhe results oi the advice that Berbiguier received were not
particularly happy. lie became more and more introspective,
remaining alone brooding in his room for hours at a time. Visions
began to appear in his mirror : noisome smells affected him when
at his devotions : his possessions were mysteriously broken ; and
his pet squirrel, Coco, was injured. Had Berbiguier been acquainted
with the sufferings of the Saints he would have found nothing
unique in these events. Devils often appeared to them in frightful
forms, both human and bestial and sometimes acted as if they were
about to spring at them. St. Frances of Rome, whom we have
already mentioned, had to endure the foulest odours. On one
occasion, her biographer stales, the demons applied a decomposed
corpse to her face, and it was only after repeated washings that the
smell could be removed from her clothes. Similarly the Blessed
Margaret Mary had her things taken from her hands by devils
and smashed on the floor. To Berbiguier all was now clear. The
demons, or fat j 'adds, as he called them, were massing against him
Mansotte, Pinel and the rest were leading the attack.

One day when out walking the sky became overcast and the
blackness of a large cloud excited attention in the street. Berbiguier
stopped, and began to explain to those around him that the cloud
was the work of magicians and demons, those excrimens de la terrc,
cxkrablcs emissaires its puissances infernales, as he called them.

The next stage in Berbiguier's development was when he began
to write letters to his persecutors. This correspondence is some-
times well worded and persuasively expressed. He explains to his
enemies that they are what he calls " Jarfadisc's," or under the
influence of demons ; and his experience has led him to believe
that doctors are often thus afflicted and women also.

As regards the latter, an experience of his own led him to
suppose that the fair sex was peculiarly susceptible to demonic
influence. One day, when attending a social gathering, he was
explaining to a lady present how busy he was in fighting the
demons. In reply she told him that it would be much better if
he attended to women rather than to demons, as, she added,

6o

SOMIi HUMAN DDDI I'lliS

tapping his thigh, they were more accommodating ! Berbiguier
was furious. It was at once obvious that not only was the woman
herself possessed, but that a demon was actually in her finger.
Did not the farf adds wait upon girls in their bedrooms in order to
possess and enjoy them, and then leave them to brave the wrath
of their parents who were not sufficiently instructed to realize the
supernatural nature of their daughters' condition, indoctrinated as
they were with ancient prejudices ? And did these naught}' girls
always object ?

Ah ! combien de pauvres tetes
Voudraient, je le parierais,
Avoir dans leur couchette
De pareils farfadets.

Farfadets,

A jamais,

Ici jc de masque

Vos mauvais
Projets,

Et vos exces

Et leur succcs.

There is some evidence that about this time Berbiguier became
the victim of practical jokers who played upon his ideas and whose
pranks confirmed many of his wildest theories. Certain letters he
received were clearly faked by a band of young rascals ; but they
went beyond themselves one day when they seized Berbiguier's pet,
the squirrel Coco, and pushed him between the mattress and the
sheet of the bed so that the little animal was crushed to death
accidentally. This trick on the part of the devils Berbiguier never
forgot or forgave, but determined to pursue his vocation with an
eagerness which verged on fanaticism. Anti-demonic broths were
concocted ; the hearts of oxen adorned with pins were to be seen
in Ins room ; and in the window stood a wooden vessel— the
Baquct Revelatew, as he called it— in which he was able to see the
demons at their work, thus using the water as others have used
bowls of ink or solid balls of glass or crystal. Thousands of
demons invaded his room in the form of fleas and lice. It seemed
that they liked tobacco, and, indeed, Berbiguier found that it was
useful for catching them, as when he threw it about the room they

ALEXIS-VJNCENT - C HARLE5 , BKUBI GUI KR

'The Scourge of the Demons." (See p. 61)

{Frontispiece to Les Farfadets^ Paris s 1821.)

P/ote III

BBRBIGI HER I m > I fLEB I )F SPIR1 r.S

hi

would devout il and, stupefied thereby, fall easy victims to his
brush which swept them into bottles, where they would later
awaken to grin and gibber at their conqueror.

Je vous tiens, je vous tiens
Dans la bouteille,
A Merveille,
Farfadets, magiciens :
Enfin je vous y tiens.

Every morning his bed resembled nothing less than a pin-cushion,
liven his clothes were similarly adorned, but the uninitiated did
not realize that every pin was firmly fixed in the body of a squirming
goblin. Berbiguier had, in truth, become the Scourge of the
Demons.

One of his friends made up a poem about him which told
how " Scourge limped when he was young, suffered when he had
grown up, and saw old age approach without his torment being
lessened. Everywhere does poor Scourge complain that he is the
victim of the devils in the street, at church, at table, near fire or
near water." After dilating upon how he kills the swarming horde,
the poet goes on to remind ladies that they owe a debt of gratitude
to Scourge for sewing up the devils in his shirt, as otherwise they
might find their way elsewhere. " His successes cannot be calcu-
lated," the poem ends : " in oil, and more rarely in water, can
Scourge be seen frying a hundred thousand devils."

It was about this time that Berbiguier determined to write an
account of his experiences, and for this purpose he moved to
24 Rue Gue'negaud, at the corner of the Rue Mazarine, partly in
order to be near a printer, Gueffier by name, who lived seven doors
down the street, and partly to be near his old haunts, as some years
before it seems that he had lived at 54 Rue Mazarine.

It was in GuefHer's office that Berbiguier's great work 1 was
printed. A veritable encyclopedia of demonology, it appeared in
1821, in three volumes, and the frontispiece (see Plate III) shows
the author in his favourite role as the " Fleau des Farfadets
(Scourge of Demons). At the four corners of the plate are the

1 Les Farfadets, ou tons Its demons nc sont pas de I autre tnonde.

62

>mi; in IMAN i >nni riES

signs and symbols of his craft. J'o the tight ,i( the upper corner
is the heart of an ox adorned with the indispensable pins. To the
left are two pieces of sulphur, placed cross-wise. Beneath, some
aromatic plants are shown, together with packets of pins. Coco,
the poor, faithful Coco, murdered by devils, sits beneath the
portrait of his master. Another plate shows Berbiguier seated at
his own fireside. The unfortunate Dr. Pinel, hopelessly " farjadisc,"
stands in the corner of the room bearing a trident. On the table,
before which the Scourge is seated, are herbs, pins and a few
bottles containing the captured demons. He is looking at them
with a provocative smile, since they can no longer do him any
harm. Etienne Prieur, once his friend but now transformed into
a fat pig, is vomiting on the floor and spewing out a victim. The
same animal is shown elsewhere, his hide bristling with pins,
complaining to the Arch Fiend of the treatment he has received
from the hands of the Scourge.

In another lithograph the author is shown refusing the proposal
of Rhotomago, who with other demons has entered his room and
suggests that Berbiguier should join them instead of resisting them.
With his right hand the Scourge holds a manuscript surmounted
by a cross : with the other he wards off Rhotomago, who is carrying
a long trident. But they are too frightened to do much, for there
on the long dresser is a bottle, and in it are thousands of devils
who have been caught by Berbiguier. Elsewhere the Scourge is
shown in his bedroom burning his aromatic plants. In the back-
ground is the bed, a huge curtained affair, at the end of which
stands a large cauldron on a low commode. In the foreground
Berbiguier stands at the table, which is piled high with plants,
some of which are already burning in a small brazier to the left ;
on the floor at his feet are two bottles, filled, we may be sure, with
the day's captures. In still another plate Berbiguier is shown in
bed at night. The room is lighted by a lamp on a small table at
the head of the bed, and many demons are about. One sits on
his bed gibbering at him : others flutter round the curtains or
crawl on the floor. Pins arc stuck into parts of the bed clothes,

BERBIGUIER : BOTTLER OF SPIRITS 6}

and fifteen bottles stand grouped on the floor ready to receive the
victims the Scourge has already impaled upon the bed.

The work itself is divided into various sections. The preface,
which has been attributed to the French doctor, chemist and
politician, Francois Vincent Raspail, gives a sketch of the subject-
matter to be treated. Although the general scheme and set-up of
1 lie book is obviously due to Berbiguier, it is thought by some
bibliographers that the material was put into shape and prepared
lor publication by Raspail and J. B. Pascal Brunei, a lawyer who
practised in Carpentras. As to the dedication, it is typical of the
author. It reads in part as follows :

" To all the Emperors, Kings, Princes, and Sovereigns of the four quarters of
the globe ! Fathers of Peoples, who on earth represent the God of Peace and
Consolation who art in Heaven ! Unite your efforts with mine in order to destroy
the influence of the Demons, the Sorcerers and the Far/adds, who lay waste the
finest and most habitable regions of your States."

The passage is signed with these words :

" The very humble and very obedient subject and servant, Berbiguier de
Terre-Neuve du Thym." 1

The general preface to the book contains a list of authorities who
lend the weight of their support to the proposition that men can
be given over to evil spirits. Among these we find the writers of
Leviticus, Exodus, Deuteronomy, and even St. Peter and many other
less inspired writers. With regard to his own torments, the
following passage is typical. He writes :

" I have suffered much, and am still suffering. For twenty years demons,
sorcerers and farjalcts have not allowed me a moment's rest : everywhere they
pursue me : in the town and country, in church and at home, and even in my
bed. My head is sound, and no defect mars the good condition of my body. I
am made in the image of our Saviour. "Why, then, have I been chosen as the
principal victim ? "

He then goes on to explain how the devils have their earthly
representatives. Thus Philippe Pinel and the other doctors at the
Salpetriere are closely allied to Satan, and his former friend,

1 This title was chosen by Berbiguier as he hoped eventually to secure a small
plot of land on which he could cultivate thyme and other aromatic plants, which
he used in his conjurations and magical ceremonies.

1 1. 1 SOMU HUMAN ODDITIES

Baptiste Prieut ol Moulins, represents Pan himself. Some come
disguised as fleas or lice : each cakes the form best suited to him :
when thus transformed they are able to enter the body through
the natural orifices.

Berbiguier's condition was now beginning to excite the serious
attention of the few friends that remained to him. It was naturally
suggested that he suffered from monomania, an idea that Berbiguier
ridiculed as absurd. Is anyone who is devoted or attached to one
particular object a monomaniac ? he asked. Are children who
prefer to play rather than to go to school monomaniacs ? The
real monomaniacs are those who put forward these preposterous
ideas. For example, take the case of the lady who said she
had a canary in her head. Berbiguier advised trepanning to let
the devil out, and a cure was effected, although it appears that
the surgeon, aware of Berbiguier's influence over the patient,
did not really operate on the skull but used the method of
suggestion.

Towards the end of his life Berbiguier became more and more
queer. Weak, dirty and unkempt, with his back humped and
neck twisted, the old man wandered through the streets, his chin
on his chest and talking only to those who first addressed him.
The tale he had to tell was always the same. It concerned the
thousands of demons he had killed and bottled that morning, and
how his laborious work had fatigued him. " Look," he would
say, " at how the farfadets have twisted my neck, and look again at
that cloud up there which presages evil for France. It is due to
the farfadets I " Then he would slowly make his way to a hill
outside the town from which a verdant landscape was displayed
before him. " Look at the crops," he would murmur : "I have
saved them from the depredations of the farfadets. But for me
they would have been smitten." So day by day, becoming weaker
and weaker, he hobbled about, till at last he found himself obliged
to enter the doors of the hospital at Carpentras, there to become a
patient until death overtook him on 3rd December 1851. The
Scourge of Demons and Bottler of Spirits was dead, his services to

Dun dm IU1BK ; BUTTLEH I »1 SPIR ITS (>',

humanity unrecognized but not forgotten. May he rest in peace
.il last.

It is unlikely, I think, that many of my readers will dispute
I he view that Berbiguier was a person who suffered from delusions.
It is true that the basis of his belief must, to a certain extent, be
shared by all who profess and call themselves Christians, but his
manner of dealing with the demons strongly suggests that his
attitude towards them differed somewhat from that of Canon
Lyttelton or Mr. C. S. Lewis. Berbiguier both caught and bottled
his farfadets, although, unless we are to make the unlikely supposition
that he suffered from an almost continuous series of hallucinations,
they were apparently usually invisible to him. It seems true that
he did occasionally have visions of some of his demons gibbering
in their bottles, but his hallucinations do not seem to have dis-
turbed his daily life to any great extent. To call him, as Erdan
does, a " dangerous imbecile " is nonsense. He seems to have
been entirely harmless ; and was never considered mad enough to
be permanently confined in an institution for the insane.

I do not think that it is known for certain what was the original
and primary stimulus that first set the train of Berbiguier's delusions
in motion. He seems to have been a ripe subject for symptoms
of paranoid schizophrenia to appear. He was brooding, suspicious,
resentful and extremely sensitive. Moreover, his delusions were
due not only to his own mental processes but to the active support
given to them by the deeds of others. There can be little doubt
that the pranks played upon him had their share in building up
his delusional system, and his ideas of persecution had their
counterpart in his notions of grandeur. For was it not to him,
Berbiguier, that had been entrusted the supreme task of exterminat-
ing the farfadets ? Was he not, in short, the Scourge of Demons ?

Unfortunately we know very little of his early life. His
childhood was painful, and his lameness may have contributed to
his feelings of inferiority. It is also not at all clear how far he
was affected by any homosexual tendencies, although there is some
slight evidence that he viewed the intimate society of women with

66

SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

pronounced disfavour. It is true that he protested that he had
always been both honest and respectful where women were con-
cerned, and he had even discussed the possibility of marriage with
some paragon of virtue. Nevertheless he attributed much of his
suffering to female devils— jarfqdettes as he called them — and his
torments were accentuated under the influence of the female
planets. However that may be, his morbid fancies on the per-
formances of the jarjadets in bedrooms suggests sexual interests of
an unhealthy type, although, as has been said, similar features,
sometimes of the most extreme kind, are found in the writings of
nearly all dcmonologists.

With regard to possible homosexual tendencies, I have not been
able to discover from his book any evidence which could be called
in any way conclusive. Berbiguier's case seems to fall well within
the classic four-stage description of V. Magnan, the French
nineteenth-century psychiatrist. Here we have (i) the preliminary
stage, in which the subject adopts an attitude of brooding and
subjective analysis ; (2) the stage where ideas of persecution begin
to develop ; (3) the gradual change of personality structure, in
which the patient entertains ideas of grandeur, as where Berbiguier,
after saying that Christ was sent by God to save man from sin,
declared that in the same way he was destined to destroy the enemies
of the Most High ; and (4) the final stage, in which symptoms of
fati gue and general deterioration usually make their appearance.

The failure of the medical treatment he received was naturally
contributory to the growth of his delusional pattern. To him the
measures proposed seemed totally inapplicable, and suggested
strongly that the physicians themselves were in the power of
demons, who, as he expressed it, " are not all of the other world."
It was thus that there developed within him a complete system of
thought which revolved endlessly around the central core of his
doctrine, namely, the existence of the jarjadets and his duty to
exterminate them. It was to this purpose that he dedicated his
life and directed all his energies. Few such characters have left us
the story of their quest in such a form and in such detail. Maybe

BERBIGUIER : BOTTLER OF SPIRITS 67

we owe the publication of his book to the help which Raspail and
Brunei gave him in putting it together, but whoever may have
been responsible, the world is not the poorer through its publication.
Had other queer human characters left their life histories in a
similar way, we might know more than we do about borderland
mental phenomena, and their relation to orthodox religious beliefs.
Rarely, however, do such individuals attain the singleness of aim
and purpose achieved by Charles Vincent Alexis Berbiguier, de
Terre-Neuve du Thym, the Scourge of the Demons.

CHAP T ER FOUR

THE DEACON OF PARIS : DEAD BUT STILL
ACTIVE

If I were asked in what place the greatest collection of human
oddities had ever gathered together, I should not hesitate in my
reply. I should direct my inquirer to the garden at the northern
end of the Avenue des Gobelins in Paris. For that garden, now
presided over by the statue of " Haymaking " by Barrau, was
formerly a cemetery, and it was in that cemetery that a certain
Frangois de Paris, the revered deacon of Paris, was buried just
behind the high altar of the Church of St. M^dard in May 1727.

Paris was born on 3rd June 1690. He was a noted Jansenist,
that is to say, a follower of that school in the Roman Catholic
Church which arose from the teaching of Cornelius Jansen, and
which was bitterly opposed by the Jesuits who regarded it as a
heresy that denied the freedom of the will and the possibility of
resisting divine grace. Like so many other holy men Paris indulged
in numerous austerities (see Plate IV), and it seems quite possible
that thereby he considerably shortened his life. However that
may be, he died in 1727, and on the very day the body was buried
a miraculous cure was said to have been eflected, which was but
the prelude to some others of an even more remarkable kind, and
to scenes in the churchyard which frankly beggar description.
Were it not for the immense mass of contemporary documents
and descriptive pieces it would seem that what occurred at St.
Medard could not by any stretch of the imagination be considered
as having actually happened, but must be put down to the ravings
of a lunatic with the most lively imagination and the most skilful
pen when it came to describing the bizarre, the horrible and the
disgusting.

Let us therefore pay a visit to the cemetery and see what is

68

" Like so many other holy men Paris indulged in numerous austerities."

(See p. 68)

{After Carre de Monlgcron.)

Plate IV

Till- DKACON OP I'ARIS : DliAl) BUT M il. I. ACTIVE ('9

going on. Among the participants in the scenes there being enacted
we may find some more than usually startling examples of human
curiosities, although nothing that the imagination is likely to
conceive can equal what will confront our bewildered eyes.

Before making a tour of the cemetery it will be as well to
remind ourselves that the company assembled there is not a circus
or an exhibition of freaks. It is a religious demonstration, in
which the power of Almighty God is being displayed, and through
which the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear and the diseased
are made healthy. The cures at the tomb of the Deacon Paris
seem at times to put those of Lourdes in the shade. Moreover,
they could have been investigated by anybody ; and the attacks
on their authenticity were as bitter as might have been expected
when two rival bodies like Jesuits and Jansenists came to grips
with each other. Indeed, it is difficult to refrain from smiling
when reading these envenomed documents, especially when some
violent anti-Jansenist lets forth a howl of righteous indignation
over a particularly unpleasant manifestation, which would have
received his warm approbation had it been reported in one of the
lives of the Saints.

Some of the cures were indeed remarkable. Not only were
those healed who were suffering from what we should now regard
as nervous disorders of various kinds, but also those who had met
with serious accidents, or who were afflicted with hideous cancers
and malignant growths. In certain cases it was not even necessary
to visit the tomb in person. One young man, who had accidentally
run an awl into his eye, regained his sight without coming to Paris ;
but in the majority of cases personal attendance at the tomb was
desirable. Among the dozens of incredible cases was that of
Mile. Coinn, who had, it was claimed, a cancer of the breast
which had reached an advanced stage. She had the best medical
advice, as some of her relations were officers in the royal household,
but she was considered incurable as much of the gland had already
been eaten away, and the odour was such that she was almost
unapproachable. Not only was it reported that she was cured at

7°

SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

the tomb, but that the whole of her breast was restored, and
appeared as before without even a scar. Numbers of physicians
gave their testimony, and the case is just one example of the kind
of cure that was said to take place at St. M^dard, in which it would
seem that suggestion of the type familiar to psychotherapists can
hardly be invoked as a satisfactory explanation, although Charcot
does not seem to have been impressed by the case.

From the contemporary records it would seem that conversion
to Jansenism was often accompanied by queer phenomena that are
difficult to associate with a change of faith. For example, there
was the case of M. Fontaine, a functionary at the court of Louis XV.
The seeds of his conversion had begun to germinate in 1732, and
had taken the peculiar form of weakening the muscles of the legs
so that at times they would not support his body. Next year,
however, the situation changed abruptly. M. Fontaine had been
invited to a dinner party at which a goodly company had assembled.
Suddenly he felt the most uncontrollable desire to turn round on
one foot. Unable to resist, he began to rotate at great speed, and
the faster he went the more astonished the guests became, and
their bewilderment increased when he asked for a devotional book
to be given to him. They soon found him a volume of Pasquier
Quesnel's anathematized Reflexions Morales, which he proceeded to
read aloud to the company whilst still revolving at high speed.
This lasted for abou t an hour, when he slowed down, and finally
came to a standstill. However, it was not for lone. For six
months, and regularly twice a day, at nine in the morning and
three in the afternoon, M. Fontaine had one of his convulsive
rotating fits, each of which lasted for an hour or even more. Whilst
he was spinning round on one foot, the other leg was describing a
circle, only being gently lowered now and then to the ground in
order to give the whirling motion an increased momentum.
Moreover, the speed attained by this human top was not incon-
siderable, sixty turns a minute being counted by some careful
observers of his gyrations.

Apart from his daily whirlings M. Fontaine exhibited other

THE DEACON OF PARIS I DEAD BUT STILL ACTIVE Jl

manifestations, and his austerities were such that they almost
deprived him of life. Among other unpleasant acts which he
forced himself to perform was that of gargling with very strong
vinegar, which took the skin off his mouth, but which he continued
(.lay and night for about eighteen days. The Jansenists were clearly
not going to be outdone by other people. They would, indeed,
;'/> one better. Let us see to what extravagances their decision led
I hem.

[n the case of M. Fontaine it will have been noticed that one
ol the most peculiar features of his religious exercises was the
convulsive nature of his rotations. These convulsions were the
most prominent feature of the phenomena exhibited by those
frequenting the tomb of the Deacon of Paris in the cemetery of
St. Medard. The men, and above all, the women, were seized by
1 In' most extraordinary convulsive movements. They revolved at
high speeds like M. Fontaine : they lay on the ground and spun
round and round : they stood on their heads and on their hands :
they bent their bodies in the shape of arcs : they adopted postures
.1! limes unseemly and positively indecent. In the early days of
I he outbreak, this excited much unfavourable comment by those
opposed to the whole of this remarkable visitation. It is probable
thai there was some justification for their strictures, since the most
elaborate precautions were later taken to prevent any criticism on
1 his score. It seems that there were always present at the cemetery
persons who were charged with the task of looking after the
tonvulsionttairts, as they were called, and arranging matters for them
M In n they were seized by their involuntary movements, or wished to
demonstrate their powers. Thus in the case of the women a special
dress was enforced. Beneath the outer dress was worn a long sheet,
M hich extended from neck to feet. Petticoat and dress reached the
Bound, and sometimes these were fastened round the feet so that
by no possibility were their legs visible, even when they were
pinning round on the ground or turning head over heels. When
this additional precaution had not been taken, one observer declares
thai Divine intervention was apparent, as the dresses remained as

72 SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

if glued to their (eel. I le recalls the lael, so abundantly illustrated
in ecclesiastical history, that although (he Almighty permitted
young women to be possessed by devils and turned upside down in
the air, He was careful to preserve their modesty by so controlling
their garments that they remained as if sewn to their legs. However
that may be, it is clear that care was taken to avoid this kind of
criticism ; although some of the manifestations at the tomb of the
Deacon seem to me to be open to much more unfavourable comment
than those in relation to which so much care and thought had been
expended.

Let us now follow our guide into the cemetery, and as he is
well known to the people they will also permit him to let us peep
into some of the houses round the cemetery, where certain of the
more extraordinary manifestations are taking place.

" I must first of all show you," says the guide, " the general
arrangements which have been made for the religious exercises
which you are about to witness. You must remember that in this
revival, God Almighty is showing His power in many ways. Not
only is He healing the sick and making the blind see, but also He
is rendering human bodies immune to pain and distaste, so that
suffering and disgust are turned to pleasure and delight."

Just as he had completed this introductory speech we entered
the cemetery. The first thing that we saw was a concourse of
children including some girls and women up to about twenty-five
years of age. Many seemed to be lame : some were obviously
suffering from serious diseases, and others were undergoing treat-
ment at the hands of the assistants. This treatment was of a very
peculiar kind. The young people were being hit about the body
with heavy hammers, solid pieces of wood and iron pestles. Some
of these instruments weighed up to thirty pounds, and they were
being vigorously applied to the chests, sides, backs and hips of the
women. Others were having their breasts gripped by tongs and
then twisted ; whilst still others were demanding that their bellies
be struck with the greatest violence by sharply pointed swords.

It seems that we showed some distress at these sights, as our

Tllli DliACON or PARIS : DEAD BUT STILL ACTIVE J\

guide appeared amused and, as we walked away, said : " If you
lake so small a thing as this to heart we shall not be able to continue
our walk. There are much worse things to come. I think we are
lucky, for if I am not much mistaken I think that this is the day
w hen we shall be able to see Mile. Gabrielle Moler, and maybe in
•ddition the Human Salamander, the Sucker, and the Eater of
( h Jure."

At these words we looked at each other, but said nothing. What
horrors had we let ourselves in for ? What was Gabrielle's speciality,
and were we to be present at exercises which could only have come
nut of a madman's nightmare ?

Suddenly our guide began to whisper in an excited tone.
Look," he said, " I thought so. The Sucker is at work. Come
and watch this divine prodigy."

As we made our way to the corner indicated by our guide, he
look the opportunity to explain to us how the convulsionnaires
dressed the festering ulcers and gangrenous sores of patients who
had been brought to the cemetery for healing. Two methods were
adopted. In the first case, prayers were said and relics of Deacon
Paris were applied to the wounds : in the second, the ulcers and
cancerous surfaces were licked and sucked by the women, who
appeared to thrive on it.

He had hardly finished this explanation when we arrived at the
spot where one of the suckers was at work. As we pushed our way
through the crowd, our guide added a word to help us appreciate
what we were about to see. " The suckers," he said, " do not
hesitate even before the most disgusting sores. They lick them
clean, drawing out the pus with their tongues and swallowing it.
Moreover, they wash the bandages which have been used to bind
up the ulcers, and then drink the water. But come, you shall see
for yourselves."

By this time we had made our way to the front, and had a clear
view of what was going on. A little girl had been carried in and
laid at the feet of one of the convulsionnaires. The child was pale,
emaciated and seemed near to death. Hardly had the convulsionnairc

7 | S< 'Mr l [i IMAN < MM u i li 1

seen her when the eyes oi the holy woman were tilled with joy, foj
through her intuition she know that the child was suflering Irom
her leg, which was rotten with the eilects of necrosis due to ,i
scrofulous affection, Telling those around her what was the
matter with the child, she thanked God that it was permitted ha
to treat the patient. " Is it not just, O God," she cried out in |
transport of joy : " is it not just that being members one of another
we should share each other's burdens ? No, indeed, my God, I do
not fear to take upon myself a part of the poison which is consuming
this child, and which has already turned one of her limbs into I
putrefying mass ! Ought I not to be happy that Thou hast deigned
to use me in this merciful task ?

She then laid hold of the child's leg and quickly unrolled the
bandages which had been wrapped round it. Finally, she removed
the bottom layer, which was sticky with blood and pus. The leg
seemed covered with ulcers, some of which were so deep that the
bone could be seen within. The odour was insupportable, and we
had to cover our noses with our pocket handkerchiefs.

When the convulsionnaire had removed all the bandages even she
grew pale with disgust and could not prevent herself from recoiling
with horror. She trembled and shuddered when she thought that
it was her duty to lick these sores. Indeed she seemed for a moment
uncertain whether she could bring herself to obey the divine
prompting. Her eyes filled with tears : her very soul seemed
troubled ; and all her movements indicated the struggle which was
proceeding within her. At last she raised her eyes to Heaven and
cried out : " Oh, my Saviour, come to my help. Thy grace is all
powerful, and Thou seest the extent of my weakness ! I bless
Thee for having destined me to treat this young girl, who is so
worthy of compassion, but at the sight of her sores the ardour,
which at first animated me, has suddenly cooled. I feel that my
heart is failing me, and that my courage has died away. If Thou
hast ordered me to do something for which I have so much repug-
nance, then at least givest Thou me the strength to carry it out."

At this moment the face of the convulsionnaire regained its

mi' iwacon or Paris: m;ad but still active 75

natural colour: a calm seemed to have taken the place oi her
previous agitation. She pressed her mouth against the child's leg,
I 'ill immediately withdrew it. She was not yet entire mistress of
herself, and had still to raise her eyes to Heaven for renewed
itrength. Finally, as if to overcome the repugnance whicb she was
nil experiencing, she buried her mouth within one of the largest
ulcers and began to suck it. Having once started, she appeared no
longer to feel the same repulsion : the Lord was pleased to remove
her weakness : the law of the flesh was opposed to the law of the
.pint, and it was only by prayer that the healer was enabled to
overcome her repugnance and execute the necessary treatment. 1

" Well," said our guide, as we moved away, " what did you
think of that? Is not that a good example of how divine grace
enables us to do what otherwise would be impossible? But we
have here a better example than that. I see a crowd assembling
over there and, if I am not much mistaken, I think I see the
well-known figure of the famous Parisian lawyer, M. le Paige, who
r> making a special study of this case."

" Is this Mile. Gabrielle Moler," I inquired, " of whom you
■.poke to us when we were coming to the cemetery ? " " No, he
replied, " it is not. I thought that before I introduced you to her
you ought to become somewhat more hardened. But you had
I letter get out your handkerchiefs again. This case is not pleasant
(o the nose. Look, there she is, the Eater of Ordure ! "

We turned our heads in the direction our guide had indicated,
and there we saw a young girl of about eighteen or nineteen years
of age. It seems that she had been a convulsionnaire for about a
year, and before starting her speciality had been almost over
fastidious as regards cleanliness, so much so indeed that she refused
even to eat a piece of bread if it had been touched by another
person. It all began when she felt that she was destined for the
most extreme tests J and as the feeling grew, she began to fast

1 With this may be compared the somewhat similar conduct of the Angelic
Youth, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, when nursing the sick (see Acta Sanctorum, June,
IV, 966).

76

SOME I li IM AN ODDI I'll

and live only on bread and water. Later, however, she stopped
even this meagre fare, and insisted for nine days on only Having a
spoonful of ox bile once a day. The following month she began
to eat human excrement, one reason being, according to her own
account, that she had violent pain in her right side, accompanied
by cracking noises, which seemed as if some of her ribs had been
broken.

With this preliminary explanation we approached the young
lady, and were glad when a man bustled up and introduced himself.
He was M. le Paige, of whom our guide had spoken, and he was
glad to let us know the full details of the case. From what he
told us, it appeared that for twenty-one days her sole diet had been
excrement and urine, to the amount of about a pound a day. This
was known to be true, for M. le Paige had been careful to weigh
her ration before she consumed it. Every day she insisted on the
composition of her repast being changed. Sometimes she had it
diluted : sometimes it was boiled. M. le Paige told us he had
measured out these revolting mixtures, and found they were about
a pint as a general rule. Later her taste underwent a change. To
the excrement and urine she added other materials such as liquid
from a mixen, soot from the chimney, nail parings and other
ingredients, the loathly details of which M. le Paige was careful to
describe in full. Every day some fresh horror was added to her
list. " Never have I seen a more horrible torture," the lawyer
said, " even for the spectators it was bad enough." But she thrived
on it. She had a lily-rose complexion and seemed in vigorous
health, and her deportment was both agile and gay. After twenty-
one days of these oddest of odd meals she was fatter, stronger,
more healthy and ruddier than she was before.

But there was something even more strange about her, and the
lawyer from Paris had no doubt about the facts. After finishing
one of her meals she said that her mouth felt very good, just as if
she had had a cup of tea with milk in it. One day, when she had
eaten her fill, she made a sign to some of the spectators, among
whom was M. le Paige himself. It seemed that she was going to

THE DEACON OI ; PAR IS : DEAD BUT STILL AC'I'IVI

vomit, but far from it. Out of her mouth came a full half glass
of fresh milk ! The lawyer saw that here was a matter deserving
of inquiry. So he tasted the milk, and took some home in a bottle,
where he observed it from day to day. There was no doubt that
it was real milk, just the same good milk, added M. le Paige, as is
partaken of by the family cat.

It was this miraculous transformation of excrement into milk
which put the seal of sanctity on the exercises of the Eater of
Ordure. For not only did God design this test and horrible penance
lor the purpose of demonstrating His power, but He further
illustrated His divine omnipotence by changing the stinking
mixture which she took into her mouth, and letting it come out
again transformed into sweet-smelling and creamy milk.

Having taken leave of M. le Paige, our guide told us that he
had good news for us. The lawyer had told him that Gabrielle
Moler was about, and, if we were lucky, we should be able to see
some of the most remarkable tests of endurance to which a human
being had ever submitted. " But you must not take it to heart,"
he added : " Gabrielle is the girl who feels no pain, 1 any more
than does our human salamander whom we may see being grilled
over a hot brazier."

As we made our way to where it was reported that Mile. Moler
was undergoing her tests, we took the opportunity to have one
further look at some of the convulsionnaires who were engaged in
their spiritual exercises. Some of the girls were rolling on the
ground : others were jumping in the air and being caught as they
fell upon cushions and mattresses. Others were twisting their
heads this way and that, rolling their eyes, extending their tongues,
protruding their bellies and holding their breath. Some again
were crying and whistling, whilst others were barking like dogs and
crowing like cocks. Whilst performing these antics they were
tumbling over one another, turnin somersaults and extending them-
selves on the ground as if nailed to crosses. Others were acting
the part of prophetesses, exhibiting clairvoyance and confessing

1 See Plate V, a.

SOME III 'MAM ODDITIR

their patients. Still others were being rolled around wrapped
up in sheets, and some ol them were lying on their faces being
whipped, pummelled and struck with hammers.

We should have liked to tarry a little to see some more of wh.il
was going on, but our guide said that we must hurry as otherwise
we might miss Mile. Moler, whose exhibition was the most curious
in the whole assembly.

This young girl had started being a convulsionnairc at the age ol
about twelve, and for three years she had been subject to the
influences around her. From her earliest years she had been noted
for her extreme piety, and since she had come to St. Medard her
holiness had much increased. Dozens of people had seen her and
confirmed the stories of the amazing manifestations which centred
upon her. Magistrates, prominent ecclesiastics, and even the
Chaplain in Ordinary to the King had attended her displays, and
all testified to the wonders that they themselves had personally
witnessed. Everything she did was purely with the aim of pleasing
the Almighty ; and to those who believed in her it was obvious
that, as one authority put it, " it was the Author of Virtues who
animated her, who inspired her and who guided her." During her
ordeals her face was illuminated with so pure and chaste an ex-
pression, that one might imagine that one was gazing into the face
of one who was beholding the very countenance of God Himself.

We were now approaching the place where Gabrielle had
installed herself, and very soon we saw the young lady, and it was
clear that she was undergoing the most unpleasant ordeal.

She was stretched on the ground on her back (cf. Plate VI), and
four assistants were pushing the points of four rods into the pit of
her belly. They had penetrated her clothes, and it seemed as if
they had gone in up to almost three inches. Then the points of
two of these rods were rammed under her chin, and the pressure
was so great that her head was forced backwards so that her neck
was bent in the form of an arc. When the rods were withdrawn
there was no sign on her skin at the places where they had been
applied.

rHE DEACON OF PARIS : DEAD Bin STILL ACTIVE

79

The next tiling she did was to put the point of one ot these
rods against her throat, just beneath the Adam's apple, and while
one assistant held this rod, another applied a similar rod to the
back of the neck and then both of them pushed the rods with all
iheir might. When this exercise was finished, it was noticed that
uol even the slightest mark was visible in front or at the back,
neither did Gabrielle show the least signs of suffering any incon-
venience.

Pour sharp-edged shovels were next brought forward. Gabrielle
had had these specially made for her. Two of them had the edges
i ut in a straight line, whilst in the two others the blades were cut
in a curved shape.

She began the demonstration by putting the curved-edged
.hovels just above and below one of her breasts, and the other two
blades at either side so that the breast was, as it were, enclosed
by the four cutting edges. Four of the assistants then pushed all
lour blades together with all the force that they could muster, but
the breast might have been made of iron for all the effect that their
elforts had. When this was over, Gabrielle invited four of the
\pectators to get to work on the other breast. Alter the demon-
stration, a committee of ladies took Gabrielle aside to examine her
breasts ; and on their return they announced that Gabrielle's
bosom was as hard as a stone, and thus had resisted the onslaught
to which it had been subjected.

Mile. Moler then again extended herself on her back, and
placed the cutting edge of one of the shovels against her throat.
One of the assistants was then asked to press down with all his
might. There was no result, as the stony hardness which her
bosom had exhibited had now spread to her throat, so that all she
felt was an agreeable and pleasant sensation.

For the next test Gabrielle knelt down and had two stools put
on either side of her. A couple of assistants then stood on these
stools, and applied the straight edges of two of the shovels to her
head. In order to increase the pressure they got two of the spectators
io support them whilst they rested their entire weight on the

SOME human ODD1 HAS

L h ! 0 VdS ' G f riC, ! e sWd *» -V <" lH,-ng in an, ,, y

•ncommoded by whal they did, they changed their tactia .,„ I
pphedthe shovels to he, shoulders so as to get a better purchW
In order to demonstrate her contempt for the weakne* of 1,,
persecutors, Gabrielle raised her shoulders up and down, as much I

L2 kn ° W tKat ***** W3S bei "§ W^ed ,„

The next ordeal again took place with Gabrielle on her bad
A big iron pestle was brought forward, three feet Ion, and weighing
orty-eight pounds. W ith this mstmment ^ , ^ * ■

he pestle sometimes being raised two feet i„ the air and then
lowed to drop At ever, blow her body suffered a rebound jus
as if . were a block of wood or some other object of a like nature.
Nevertheless the exerc.se was so pleasing to Mile. Moler that she
insisted on it being done no less than nmety times in quick
succession.

She next asked for a good hammering. A heavy iron mallet
was produced, and with this she received about one hundred blows
on her belly. But even then she was not satisfied. Another big
xror .pestle b ht m> ^ ^ ^ g ^ g

mth her back agamst a wall, she asked the assistants to g lve he!
some thirty or forty blows on the belly ; and although they were
exertmg all their strength she kept on crying out for more Her
dress and camisole were both torn by the point of the pestle, but
cunously enough there was not the slightest rent in her shift. This
( Wlth 7° nder - d ad ™^on, and one writer says that
it was doubtless due to the fact that God wished to spare this
extremely modest young lady from the mortification that she would
have suffered if an, man present had caught sight of a portion of

A remarkable piece of apparatus was then brought forward.
This was a heavy stone weighing sixty pounds, to which had been
attached a T-shaped handle to facilitate manipulation. For this
test she again lay on the ground on her back; and an assistant
raised the stone about a foot and a half above her body and then

'Gabrielle is the girl who feels no pain." (See p. 77)

'Gabrielle asked for a good hammering"
(See p. 80)

(After Carre dc Montgeron.)

Plate V

nil DEACON OP PARIS! DBAD BUT Mill. ACTIVK 8l

I, | ,, Imp ,,n licr chesl and belly, <>i held it above her and then
■fdiu'lii ii down with .ill his strength. After he had done this

nil • ii thirty times he had to rest a few moments before

.., [nit if he was too tired to continue, the insatiable

I UIihi IK used to get another to do it for him. Sometimes, they
., I he used to lie on her face and had the stone dropped on her
,, I ii that she was so flattened out that her nose seemed to have

I, ii.i., ,ned .iltogether. However, when she got up all was well :

I I , , , . „.,., not the slightest sign of bruising and she had felt no pain.

\ 1 1 huii. ill we had really seen enough of this kind of thing, our
,,,, I. mid lh.it we must stay a few moments as he had just heard

I I ihrielle was going to show the fire-test. It was possible, he

i. .1,1 us, lli.it on our way out we might have the good fortune to
urn up against Maria Sonnet, the Human Salamander, and then we
Blight be able to compare her performance with that of Gabrielle
md de< ide which we liked the better.

Whilst our guide was thus talking to us, a big fire was being

I IndJed on a made-up hearth, and when it was burning fiercely
• |abl telle knelt down in front of it. Two men who were standing
,i either end of the hearth then took her by the hands, whilst a

I I hi d man who was standing behind her held the ends of a cord
Hvhich encircled her body. Then she bent over towards the fire
.ii id put her head into it and sometimes even rested it on the
burning firebrands. It is true that the three men who controlled
her soon pulled her away from the fire, but hardly had she with-
drawn her head than she plunged it in again, sometimes, we were
assured, repeating the process a hundred times. On other occasions
they said that she used to lay her head in the fire (cf. Plate VII) for
a good quarter of an hour without getting up ; and now and then
when her head was in the fire she did not draw it away farther
than about two inches. In spite of these tests, however, her hair,
eyelashes and eyebrows showed no sign of burning.

When she wanted to show something different the guide said
.die used to lie down by the fire and put her face five or six inches
away from the flames. Here it remained for a longer time than

•' Ill 'MAN i i| >|i| in .,

IM'd |(. |,,ki> oilt ,1 pi, ,,,,„„,,„, ,,,,, ,„„„,,, „ , J

.." on these occasions tha, her clothes, .,,„ „!

" iU ; &e d ™ '-d, smel, as if ,hey !,.„, ,3

, " T' S a , 1S ° T"^ tHat ^ GabrieJle ™ » bonne, o, J
t ? Ung6dh T ,Wad 111 thefe ' tncn the top or o, h , ,
l would be burnt ; and one of the specks ^

W °- ^faction the state of <,, „
«*=« h -as a le to cook some apples when these were hun ,

the H a Ck ° f Clther u Gab f idIe ° r a " 0th - wh0 - undergoing tfc ■

Having seen the fire-test with Gabnelle Moler we were 3
-,.ous to see Maria Sonnet; and as it seemed that she Z
undergoing the ordeal that day the guide told us very briefly J
happened. He said that when Maria decided to unlrgo her
he fire many preparations had to be made. Accounts dhl
« * the p ease procedure, but the general picture was C,„

§ \ A ""f Cab ; net was set U P> "ther similar perhaps to ,
ba^ng-tent, and m front of this a small curtain was' erecLd o
dd, onal secunty Mana, accompanied by a small committee
women, then entered the tent, although it would seem tin,
™* her mother only went in with her to help he "n £
p Reparations. For these she took off her outer dre£ remlm
only n her corset petticoat and stockings. Coming out of the
^t she immediately began to call for the iron stoolf which^
used n the demonstration. These were at once brought forward
by a couple of men, who placed them in the required position It
seems that a kind of fire-place had been arranged, and it was a
either end of this fire-place that the stools were placed so thTJv
object laid across tW would be immediately L the r whS
had been lighted beneath. The stools having been placid n

M ZZZ t P 1 : St0 ° JS ' 50 th3t th£ head ^ f eet of
Maria might be more firmly and comfortably placed.

\< ON i 'I PARIS I DI AIi hill M il l. ACTIVIi 8j

... t v " < 1 1 1 1 1 '. w as in position Maria was enveloped in a kind
i 1 1 i I Li)- down across the stools so that her body was

ImI.Ii over ilie lire, which had been stoked up to a great

|i M i I., I • ■ supplied with large and small chumps and blocks of

I I, iv '.In- lay as if asleep whilst the flames played around
i ■ i >,h . .in.l now and then she would remain for perhaps four

I .. I ..I r minutes each, whilst the heat was sufficient to roast

, | , i mi il , on.

n. .ili. i ol her fire-tests was of an even more striking character.

■ i isod (o be brought up in which a bright fire was burning.

!<>ii would (hen sit down in front of it and thrust her two feet,
i 1 1 . ili. i with shoes and stockings, into the middle of the blazing
Mmm In a few moments the shoes caught fire, and the soles were
|.ii. I I) reduced to ashes. On one occasion a spectator, who was
i . nil i mI nested in the phenomenon and who wished to investigate
. Iii 1 1, further, examined the soles of her stockings when she had
. ii Mi. m il her feet from the fire. On touching one of them the
Imttrial immediately crumbled away in ash leaving a portion of
In i lure loot visible and apparently unburnt. The result of this
i.-.l completely puzzled the spectator who had made it and who
I i.i. I been present on a number of previous occasions when Mana
w ,is showing off her powers. How was it, he asks, that in one test
i In fire did not burn the linen sheet in which Maria was wrapped,
in.! in the other it did what was expected, namely, consume to
.i-.l ics the shoes and stockings worn at the time ? In attempting to
answer this riddle, he confessed that it was beyond him. The only
solution which would appear to be reasonable to him was that here
was a case in which the Almighty God was demonstrating His
power to suspend those laws which on normal occasions He permits
to hold their sway over the world of Nature.

Owing to the sensation and controversy caused by the events in
the cemetery of St. M£dard, it was closed in 1732 by order of the
authorities. The number of the convulsionnaires was therefore some-
what reduced, although tests were still applied to certain of them
in private houses both in Paris and elsewhere. Many lingered on

&4 SOME HUMAN ODDITIRS

until at least 1759, m which year the famous French savant, Charlgj
Mane La Condamine (1701-74), managed to be present at a Ic-.i
which, in many ways, surpassed in horror even those which weir
common during the heyday of the movement, namely, from r/y;
till 1731. As is well known, La Condamine was a man of inordinate
curiosity, with an intense desire to probe into the unusual and the
unknown ; and his sceptical attitude was so ill concealed that he at
last found it very difficult to gain entrance to the more spectacular
of the demonstrations. By skilful arrangement, however, he was
successful in attending incognito one of the meetings at which
Sister Francoise, a convulsionnaire of long standing, was undergoing
the test of crucifixion. Fortunately he kept notes of the proceedings,
and these have been printed in the literary and philosophical
correspondence of Grimm, Diderot, etc., thus supplying us with
what is probably the most vivid contemporary account that we
possess.

When La Condamine arrived at the lodgings at the back of a
poor house in a crowded Parisian district where Francoise lived,
he found about twenty people assembled, among them being an
ecclesiastic of some prominence. The priest m charge of the
meeting was Father Cottu, who unfortunately at once recognized
La Condamine, but after some discussion he permitted him to
remain.

Francoise was on her knees in the centre of the room, clothed
in a long smock of rough coarse cloth, which hung below her feet.
She was already in a kind of ecstasy, and was repeatedly kissing a
little crucifix which had, so it was said, been in contact with a
relic of the Deacon of Pans. Father Cottu and a lay assistant
were walking round her and striking her on the chest, sides and
back with a bundle of heavy iron chains weighing some eight to
ten pounds. Then they struck her with two big blocks of wood
some sixty times in succession, this phase of the exhibition being
ended by the director walking over her several times, although
La Condamine noticed that only the sole and never the heel of
his foot was applied to her body.

Illl- DliACON Ol PARIS : OliAl) III IT S Jill. AC.IIVH

rhe .utiial crucifixion then followed. Francoise was laid upon

I wooden cross, about six and a half feet in length and two inches

I I in k . to which she was tied both at her waist and about her
ml les, Having bathed her left hand with water which had
touched a little cross of the Deacon, the director then nailed the
Mlm of her hand to the cross with four or five smart blows from
1 hammer, using a square nail two and a half inches long. After

iterval of two minutes the same procedure was followed with

iIh right hand. Although Francoise seemed to be suffering she
made no sound, but the pain she endured was reflected in the
. (pression of her face. This was of particular interest to La
1 ondamine, for it had been widely reported that the convulsionnaircs
who underwent these tests suffered no pain during their application.

It was now half an hour since the hands of Francoise had been
11.11 led to the cross, and the director had not yet begun to nail her
feet. For this operation her feet were placed on a light support
which was attached to the base of the cross by some brackets.
Square nails, more than three inches long, were then driven through
her feet ; and the upper part of the cross was raised some three
or four feet above the ground supported by four of the spectators.
Finally, the upper part was allowed to rest on the seat of a chair,
whilst the bottom remained on the ground.

After some time the cross was again raised and leant up against
I he wall ; but a little later it was taken down and laid on the
lloor. Parts of the Psalms and the Gospel according to St. John
were then recited.

The tests, however, were not yet finished. Around the head of
Francoise was now placed a circlet of steel furnished with sharp
points ; and after the cross had again been raised and put against
the wall, some swords were produced and the points of these were
pressed against her breast. La Condamine noticed how some of
them actually bent under the pressure applied, but he also remarked
that Francoise was wearing some folded thick material beneath
her dress which might have been effective in preventing any serious
wounds from being inflicted.

86

SOMB HUMAN ODDITIBS

Nearly three hours had elapsed since Francoise had had hat
hands nailed to the cross ; and now these nails were removed with
a pair of pliers. Although the pain she experienced made her
grind her teeth and tremble, she uttered no sound, and the blood
which flowed from the holes in her hands was washed away with
clean water. Her feet, however, had still to be unfastened ; bu(
before this was done a further test had to be endured. A double
edged knife attached to a stick about two or three feet long was
produced, and it was with this blade that her side was to be
pierced. Part of her dress having been unfastened and a portion
of her flesh laid bare, she rubbed the place to be pierced with a
little cross connected with the Deacon of Paris. Then she held
the point in position, and the priest drove it in to a depth of perhaps
a quarter of an inch. Only a little blood flowed from the wound,
although it had been reported that on occasions several pints had
been lost.

The exhausted Francoise then asked for something to drink, so
they gave her vinegar mixed with cinders, which she swallowed
after having made many signs of the cross.

More than three hours and a half had now gone by since she
had been crucified : the time was getting late, and so it was decided
to withdraw the nails from .her feet. After this had been done,
one of the spectators examined the wood in which the points had
entered. The hole made by one of the nails was nearly half an
inch in depth. The crucifixion was over.

Even on her death-bed Francoise was not left in peace. 1 Father
Cottu was convinced that, in order to cure her, it was necessary to
give her a good hammering, but he was prevented from doing so
by the physician who had been summoned. " What are you
doing ? " the doctor asked the pious director, when he saw the
usual apparatus being prepared. "I am going to soothe and cure

1 The pious zeal of those who operated upon the convultimnatrts was well
exemplified by the action of M. Louis Adrien Le Paige, mentioned above, who
investigated the case of the Eater of Ordure. Eight days before the birth of his
child he administered a sound hammering to his wife. She died a week after
her deliver)', " very happily," according to the indefatigable Father Cottu.

Till? HHACON OF PARIS : DKAD 111 IT NTH. I. ACTIVK

her," the priest replied. " Cure her .' " the doctor gasped. " Yes,
monsieur," responded the director, " this has already been done in
this way and with success." " We know nothing of this kind of
treatment in the medical faculty," said the physician, " and we are
no! going to have anything to do with it here." " Well," replied
the priest, " you will have to answer for her death."

Whilst they were thus arguing Francoise was at her last gasp.
I he doctor hastened to her side. " God be praised," she murmured,
" it is finished. This is the great and final convulsion." 1

The crucifixion of Francoise was far from being the only one
with which France was made familiar in the eighteenth century.
Some thirty years later amazing events were reported as taking
place at the little village of Fareins, not far from Lyon, where the
brothers Bonjour were adopting a religious attitude and sanctioning
certain odd practices which caused grave concern to the ecclesiastical
■itithorities.

This is not the place to describe the cult which was very popular
among the Fareinists, as they were called. It is a curious chapter in
fansenist history, but as much of the material is still unprinted
little attention has been paid to it outside France. Yet it contains
elements of great interest to the student of the growth and develop-
ment of human fanaticism ; and the crucifixion of Etiennette
Thomasson was but one of the events which brought an unenviable
notoriety to the little community at Fareins.

Etiennette was a peasant girl of poor intelligence but who, in
spite of her limitations, was an enthusiastic supporter of the
brothers Bonjour. Her father worked in a local vineyard, but she
herself was incapable of even the more simple domestic tasks ; and
the fits to which she was subject made any sustained employment
impossible. To those who believed in her sacred mission Etiennette
and her friend, Marguerite Bernard, were simple, pious souls, whose
peculiarities were regarded as signs of divine favour. Nevertheless
few of them could have been altogether prepared for the singular

1 For another vivid account of a similar crucifixion see Baron Carl H. von
Gleichen's Souvenirs (Paris, 1868), pp. 184 ff.

88

soMi- human onmrips

prod of Mile. Thomasson's virtue which was about to be
demonstrated.

It was on 12th October 1787 that about a dozen people assembled
in the little church at Fareins to witness the crucifixion of Etiennette.
Standing upright and with her back to a wall, she extended her
arms on either side with her hands in the proper position for
receiving the nails. These were about four and a half inches long
and were quickly driven through her hands into the wall. Some
difficulty was experienced with her feet, since the nails could not
be driven into the slab of stone on which she was standing, so they
were riveted beneath her feet once they had penetrated the flesh.

For the space of three minutes Etiennette remained nailed to
the wall ; and when the nails were withdrawn the bleeding holes
indicated the extent of her suffering. Some accounts state that
soon after the removal of the nails Etiennette returned to work,
but this has been questioned, and on the face of it it seems very
unlikely in view of the soreness resulting from the perforations. 1
However that may be, the scandal could hardly be concealed, and
an inquiry was ordered. Much evidence was accumulated and
depositions taken. Etiennette's crucifixion passed into history,
and it was not until 22nd April 1791 that she herself died and the
fanatics of Fareins were slowly forgotten.

Looking back at the events recorded in the preceding pages it
might seem to some of my readers that they could not possibly
have ever really happened, but must be regarded rather as the
product of a diseased imagination. 2 Such an attitude would be a
profound mistake. Were the reader to glance through my files,
in which is stored enough material for many books on the history
of human stupidity and fanaticism, he would soon realize that the

1 In the famous case of Matteo Lovat, who crucified himself on 9th July 1805,
the wounds were completely cured in the first week of August. Instances of
auto-crucifixion do not seem to be common. One was said to have taken place
in Turin in 1910, another in Berlin in 1927, and one of the most recent, which
was more in the nature of an exhibition for gain, was reported in 1943.

2 The literature on the convulsionnairts is very extensive. In the early part of
the nineteenth century one French library was said to possess a collection of the
smaller and fugitive pieces which filled thirteen quarto volumes.

thb di;ac:on op parts : dp.ad but stii.i. activp.

convulsionnairts of St. Medard were merely presenting phenomena
which could easily be compared with similar manifestations
occurring elsewhere. What is much more surprising is the lack of
any real scientific interest in the events at the cemetery. Those
who discussed the matter at all did so mainly from the theological
point of view ; for what was important to them were the rival
claims of Jesuit and Jansenist. It is true that the philosopher
David Hume found himself in considerable difficulties when it
came to dealing with the matter. Speaking of the events at St.
Medard he says that " surely never was a greater number of miracles
ascribed to one person," and goes on to say that many of them
" were immediately proved on the spot, before judges of un-
questioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction."
Moreover, he points out how the Jesuits would have been only too
pleased to refute or detect them had they been able to do so. But
to David Hume they all must have been deceived by what he calls
" these impostures," because if they were not so deceived the
events were miracles, and miracles are absolutely impossible. It
does not seem to have occurred to this philosopher that he might
be wrong in calling them miracles. By assuming that they were,
and by believing at the same time that miracles were impossible,
he cut the ground from under his own feet. He does not seem
to have realized that they might have been phenomena to which
sufficient attention had not been paid and so were as yet unexplained.
His treatment of the famous story of Marguerite Pascal's cure at
Port Royal through contact with a holy relic is on the same lines.
To him the material bearing on the case is " despicable " : the
event to which it relates could not have happened, because, if it
did, it was a miracle, and miracles do not happen. It was thus that
investigation was impeded and progress hampered.

The same story could be told all down the ages and is still being
repeated to-day. Phenomena of this kind are often too mixed to
fall easily into one specific branch of science. An objective point
of view is difficult, since many people are already committed to
beliefs and opinions which make any such detached attitude

C)0

nomi: HUMAN ODDI l ll-S

impossible. Roman Catholics will possibly ascribe such phenomena
as due to diabolic possession, spiritualists to the action of dis-
carnate entities, and medical men to the mysterious operation of
"hysteria" or "suggestion." Such opinions lead us nowhere
except to confusion.

It was, perhaps, for this very reason that one of the leaders of
British medicine once proposed to the author that a small committee
possessing the necessary qualifications be set up which could hold
itself in readiness to investigate and report upon queer and unusual
events which were of interest from the medical, psychological or
social points of view. Such a committee has never been formed,
although it is, in my opinion, long overdue. The convulsions and
cures at St. Menard were not simply a medical or a theological
problem. They possessed profound psychological and social
implications, apart altogether from the element of the supernormal
which, at times, even the most sceptical contemporary writers
found it difficult to avoid considering. Never perhaps was sug-
gestion, or even what might be called sympathetic contagion, more
amply demonstrated on such a large scale and for so long a period
of time. It is, perhaps, under conditions allied to these that
human beings rise to the highest peaks of ecstasy and love, or sink
to the lowest depths of depravity and hate. Certainly the activity
of the Deacon of Pans after his death was manifested in queer and
unexpected ways. Perhaps in these sophisticated times we can
pay the best tribute to his memory by trying to understand them
with an open mind and without prejudice.

CHAPTER FIVE

D. D. HOME : SORCERER OF KINGS

Among the mysterious and puzzling personalities of the nineteenth
century there can be little doubt that the famous medium, D. D.
Home, was one of the most odd and the most interesting. Much
is known about him, for both he and his wife wrote books, but
wherever he went the atmosphere of mystery which surrounded
him made it difficult to know the real man ; and the controversy
which he aroused during his life has, as is the case with so many
queer characters, not passed with time, but even to-day is sometimes
more acrimonious than it was when he was still alive, moving in
high society and entertaining imperial courts.

Daniel Dunalass Home was born in Scotland on 20th March
1833. His father, William Home, was, it seems, the illegitimate
son of Alexander, tenth Earl of Home, who died in 1 841. The
legitimacy of Daniel Home himself does not appear to be in doubt,
although there is some reason to suppose that he was extremely
sensitive on the matter. His parents were married on 19th February
1830 by the Rev. John Somerville, and the marriage certificate was
certified by the Rev. J. E. Craig and Dr. Barclay in 1858.

We know little about his very early years, but it seems that he
was taken to America when he was about nine, accompanying his
uncle and aunt who wished to emigrate. At the time that he
arrived in America what spiritualists call " modern spiritualism "
had not yet begun. The Fox sisters had not yet started to produce
their famous rappings at Hydesville ; yet the time was ripe for a
spiritual revival of some sort, and the intense interest in animal
magnetism, mesmerism, and what was called " electro-biology,"
suggested what form the revival would take once it began.

A short time after the occurrence of the Rochester knockings,

31

i).' SOME human ODD1 riES

through which the Fox sisters had initiated the coming oi the new
revelation, Home himself became the centre ol similar disturbances,
and f urniture began to glide about the rooms without any physic*]
agency being observed. By 1851 Home was established as a medium
with a reputation, and from that time until his death in 1880,
with a few intervals, phenomena continued to occur in his presence.
Before he left America most of the manifestations associated with
him had been reported, including complete levitations and the
appearance of armless hands which dissolved or melted away when
seized for the purpose of inspection or examination.

In March 1855 Home sailed for England and put up at Cox's
Hotel in Jermyn Street, London, whence his fame rapidly spread,
and he began to give stances to an ever-increasing number of
inquirers and curiosity seekers. It was during this period that he
met Mr. and Mrs. Robert Browning and the literary and artistic
circles in which they moved. During his second and third visits
to England, which lasted with an interval till the end of 1 86 1, he
again met many distinguished people, and several accounts of his
sittings have been preserved in the. memoirs, letters and diaries of
the period. Between his first and second visits he went to Florence,
and there met the literary and artistic circle which gathered in the
salons and studios of Seymour Kirkup, T. A. Trollope and Hiram
Powers.

The years 1856 and 1857 saw Home 111 France, and it was in
these years that he gave the famous series of seances in the Tuileries
in Paris when many of the entourage of Napoleon III and the
Empress Eugenie attended the demonstrations which formed one
of the principal diversions of the brilliant court of the Second
Empire. In 1865 he was in England again ; and from 1867 until
1869 he gave the remarkable series of sittings which were recorded
by Lord Dunraven and which were reprinted by the Society for
Psychical Research in 1924. It was in Paris that Lord Dunraven
first met Home, and some years later the interest in the remarkable
phenomena that occurred in his presence ripened into personal
friendship. For nearly two years the pair were constantly together,

I). I). MUMi: : SORCHRFR OF KINGS

and it was during this time that Lord Dunraven was able to observe
1 Ionic as few were able to do. It was he who was present when the
odd phenomena associated with the medium occurred under all
torts of conditions — in daylight, at regular seances or just anywhere
.iiid at any time, day or night.

As far as is known Lord Dunraven never wavered in his belief
that the physical manifestations around D. D. Home were genuinely
supernormal, that is to say, due to unexplained causes and not in
any sense connected with trickery or deceit of any kind. Certainly
it would seem that he had unequalled opportunity for discovering
evidence of such trickery, since he lived with Home for days at a
lime, slept in the same room with him and even in the same bed,
and was present at numbers of seances at which phenomena occurred
which have hardly, if ever, been recorded as happening with any
other medium working under the same conditions. Objects moved
without being touched ; raps were heard and lights seen ; the
medium was both levitated and elongated ; phantom forms
appeared and curious sounds like muffled voices were heard together
with the chirping of birds and the whirring made by their wings.

In 1868 London society was most intrigued by the equity case
against Home which was brought by Mrs. Lyon, a wealthy widow,
in which it was alleged that through undue influence Home had
persuaded her to make over to him a large sum of money. Soon
afterwards Home went to Russia, followed by Switzerland, Italy
and France, where more seances were held, and in June 1886 he
died and was buried in St. Germain.

Such in brief outline are the main periods in the life of D. D.
Home. Apart from special occasions when such phenomena as
full-form phantoms, levitations, handling live coals and the
elongation of the medium's body were reported, Home's seances
followed a general pattern which does not seem to have undergone
any radical change since he first began to sit regularly. Mr. Frank
Podmore, one of Home's most acute critics, once stated with an
inaccuracy which was exceedingly unusual with him that the
number of persons who sat with Home did not exceed thirty,

94 SOMH HUMAN IHIDI I II ';

whereas the fact is lli.it three hundred would, in my opinion, he
almost an underestimate. However that may be, the phenomena
presented fell into four main types. The sitters were usually
gathered round a table which was often of the heavy round type
on a central pillar with claw feet. Very often the gas was left on
or the room lighted with candles. The hands of the company
were placed on the table, although it does not seem that a chain
of hands was common in Home's seances. After a time a trembling
of the table was observed and this movement was often reported
as occurring to the sitters' chairs or even to the room itself. It
was aptly described by one sitter, if my recollection serves me, as
a sensation similar to one which might be imagined if her chair
had become possessed of a beating heart. The frame appeared to
throb as if endowed with some strange kind of internal vitality.
Raps were then usually heard and communication was established
between the sitters and the alleged controlling entities. Table
movements followed, often accompanied by complete levitation,
and then, when conditions were favourable, the room was darkened
to show the spirit-hands. After these had appeared, rung bells,
and possibly played a few notes on an accordion, the sitting closed.

Of all the phenomena produced by D. D. Home the spirit-
hands have received most of the criticism levelled against him
both during his lifetime and in later years. I shall have something
to say later about this problem, but in the meantime I would refer
the reader to Count Perovsky-Petrovo-Solovovo's brilliant analysis
of the question in Vol. XXI of the Proceedings of the Society
for Psychical Research, which is, in my view, one of the most
important and penetrating studies ever made on the question of
hallucination as a factor in the study of the physical phenomena
of spiritualism.

It would not be profitable in this place to deal in any way fully
either with the life of D. D. Home or with the phenomena with
which his name is associated. Materials for such a study are
ample, and a number of writers have dealt with them from varying
points of view. Neither do I propose here to discuss the evidence

D. 1 1. HOME! SORCERER OF kincs ()>,

lor (he genuineness or otherwise of the physical phenomena
reported, but to concentrate upon three mysteries, which have for
long intrigued students of the medium, and to which no satis-
factory answers have hitherto been given. In dealing with these
matters it is possible that more light may be thrown upon Home
and his sorcery ; and by an indirect approach a better appreciation
oi how the problem was treated by contemporary opinion may be
reached than by a detailed criticism of what, after all, are largely
reports and notes by untrained observers who regarded the seances
as demonstrations rather than as experiments.

During the course of his life and travels in various European
countries Home met numbers of people living in the higher social
scale, some of whom regarded him with favour and others with
aversion. In their memoirs and diaries a vivid picture of the period
is presented, and it is in these pages that we can see how Home
was regarded from the personal point of view apart altogether from
his reputation as a sorcerer. A cloud of mystery was always
hanging about him ; and among those who regarded him with
horror and dislike was the poet, Robert Browning, and others in
his circle. Moreover, when Home visited France in 1857 a mystery
developed around his sudden departure ; and in the equity case of
1868 mentioned above controversy laged as to the precise rights
and wrongs of this tangled affair.

These, then, are the three questions regarding D. D. Home to
which I would draw the reader's attention and which I hope to
answer in the following pages. Stated in brief they are :

1. How exactly were Home and his phenomena regarded by
such people as Mr. and Mrs. Browning, T. A. Trollope,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and other people of the period
whose opinions are entitled to respect ? Moreover, why
was Home's name anathema to Robert Browning, and did
he, when Home first arrived in England, know or suspect
the existence of what Mrs. Browning later called " the
mystery of iniquity " which everybody raved about but
nobody would specify ?

SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

z. Wliat happened during 1 Ionic's visit to the Tuiliercs in
1857, and why did he suddenly leave France amid a cloud
of suspicion and rumour ?

3. What was it that really motivated Mrs. Jane Lyon 111 wishing
to adopt D. D. Home as her son and in settling on him a
comfortable income for life ?

Before discussing the opinions of prominent personalities of the
period it will be well to try to sketch the position of the people
generally as regards what we have been accustomed to call spiritual-
istic phenomena. It must be remembered that the situation then
was very different from what it is to-day. Interest in mesmerism
was gradually extending to table-turning and table-rapping, the
latter phenomenon easily lending itself to messages and com-
munications from the supposed spirits which were thought to
control both the table movements and the raps. Control con-
ditions as we know them to-day were unknown : the sittings in
many cases were demonstrations, and the cloths which often
covered the tables, coupled with the ample crinolines worn by the
ladies, formed an effective shield when one was required. The
mania for the supernatural filtered through to all ranks of society.
An instructive picture of the period was given by Louis Blanc, the
celebrated French journalist, critic and historian, who wrote an
account of his impressions from 1861 to 1870.

Blanc was, I suppose, what one would call a rationalist, and he
devotes two chapters in his diary to a consideration of the love of
the marvellous and of the growth of superstition in England. He
begins his reflections by drawing attention to a similar love of
the marvellous in eighteenth-century France. He recalls the
exploits of Count Saint Germain who claimed to be immortal and
to have known Jesus and Francois I er . Then there was Caghostro
with his alchemy, his miracles of healing and his evocation of
spectres. Yet at the same time Helvetius was compiling his books
on the existence of the soul, Diderot was discussing the relations
between mind and matter, and Augustin Roux was trying to
disprove the existence of a Deity through the chemical analysis of

D. n. iiomi; : sorci:ri;r of kinun 97

I lie human body. liven Baron Holbach himself, that sceptic of
sceptics, was so credulous when the supernatural was in question
that he grew red in the face whenever people began to throw doubt
upon the truth of some particularly foolish story.

Passing on to conditions in England, Louis Blanc says that
there was no doubt that a similar craving for marvels and belief
in the impossible, which led directly to a cult of the ridiculous,
had developed in England. If Mr. Home, he writes, had not
much to complain about during his residence in France, certainly
he could congratulate himself on the situation in England. In a
number of drawing-rooms he had but to appear to have his power
over the invisible world saluted, and like Caesar himself he could
say : I came, I saw, I conquered. " I should astonish you,"
Blanc goes on to say, if I were to name the intelligences which
he has brought beneath his sway and the souls which he has
conquered by making the spirits cause tables to turn, jump, stamp
and dance, in knotting handkerchiefs beneath the aforesaid tables
and suspending them in the air, in pushing sofas from one end of
the room to another, and in teasing the sitters by causing their
knees and calves to be pinched." How was it possible, Blanc
inquires, to escape from an epidemic which had become fashion-
able ? What courage was needed to stand up against fashion !

Continuing his discussion Blanc says that in the England of his
day you could count by the thousand fortune-tellers of both sexes,
readers of cards, rural and urban astrologers, sorcerers and prophets,
and he adds to this statement by declaring that business was
excellent " so considerable is the number of their dupes." From
his own personal knowledge, he writes, there existed in London
an incredible number of unsavoury dens where old women as ugly,
decrepit, dirty and dubious as business permits all told Milady
the exact moment when she would see her husband again or Miss
So-and-So that she could dry her eyes as she was still loved and
that the quarrel would not last. " Would you believe," he goes
on, " that in London exists a number of dark dens," all of them
situated in lonely parts of the city, to which duchesses, countesses,

somi! human oi>i)irii;s

society ladies and others stealthily crept to iiave their fortunes told
by these witches in rags ?

Whilst society was thus amusing itself Blanc narrates how t he-
Ghost Club was advertising for a haunted house. What its members
wanted, says Blanc, were phantoms, phantoms to be taken seriously
and not those fabricated by Mr. Home, " whose spectres have faces
the colour of which comes off in the wash."

Louis Blanc's own critical powers are illustrated by his vivid
account of a seance with the Davenport Brothers, mediums whom
he regarded as charlatans, but nowhere do I find any detailed
account of his sittings with Home, who had met him on more
than one occasion. When the Lyon-Home trial came off in 1868
he wrote satirically of the beliefs of the faithful before the decision
was announced. " Vice-Chancellor Giffard's table will rise into
the air in an ecstatic manner," he says, " his wig will rise from his
head with terror ; Mrs. Lyon will be confounded and the truth
avenged. The believers have no doubts as to the result. Have
you ? "

It is almost certain that, as has been said, Louis Blanc met
Home at the series of seances which were held by Mrs. Milner
Gibson in her palatial residence off Hyde Park. Mrs. Gibson,
whose husband was President of the Board of Trade, was an early
supporter of the exponents of mesmerism and spiritualism, and
Home soon became her special pet and social lion. Nothing can
give a better idea of how sittings were conducted in those days
than a brief account of the Gibson seances as revealed in diaries
and letters. Invitations were sent out by Mrs. Gibson for these
gatherings, and a distinguished company used to assemble in her
salon. Charles Dickens was there, and many foreign persons of
social rank and political distinction. Robert Browning had nothing
to do with them. He classed Mrs. Gibson and her friends as so
much " vermin " ; and in one of his letters to Isabella Blaoden
regrets the fact that he had to dine that evening at the house of a
lady of rank who believed implicitly in a medium who brought
showers of bouquets from heaven, a place which, he said, was

D, i). HOME : SORCERER OF KINGS

probably beneath her own petticoats which, he imagined, were not
searched previous to the performance. After the company had
partaken of a substantial buffet supper, a move was made to the
stance room where Home seated himself at the large table in his
accustomed place. Phenomena soon began ; furniture moved
about, and the room was sometimes darkened to show the spirit -
hands. Other spontaneous phenomena were also reported. On
niie occasion Mrs. Milner Gibson's stomacher was said to have
been suddenly inflated, and Mrs. Gibson explained the manifestation
by declaring it was her spirit-child.

In spite of the marvels which were so often occurring in the
darkened drawing-room, the physical as well as the spiritual needs
of the sitters had to be satisfied ; and on summer evenings during
the seances liveried footmen glided in and out bearing trays of
iced drinks, whilst Mrs. Gibson was making frenzied attempts to
communicate with her daughter who had passed beyond the veil.

Among the more sceptical of the female observers was the
famous Mrs. Eliza Lynn Linton, who in spite of her usual purring
and caressing manner, knew how to bite and scratch through her
versatile pen. She used to attend the Milner Gibson sittings, and
says she was quite prepared to believe in their genuineness, but
never saw anything that might not have been done by a trick,
neither there nor elsewhere. In one of her novels she describes the
seances at Mrs. Gibson's house, and writes satirically of the
conditions and the way the medium was supposed to have been
levitated to the ceiling. She sums up her conclusions by stating
that she could fill a volume with her experiences, her suspicions
and her silent detections of imposture. She says she never saw
anything whatever that might not have been done by trick and
collusion and, be it noted, she had seen nearly all the mediums.
Investigation, she says, was not allowed, nor were the most
elementary precautions taken against imposture ; and she adds
that the amount " of patent falsehood swallowed open-mouthed
has been to me a sorry text on which to preach a eulogium on our
enlightenment."

IPO

SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

Another social celebrity was Henrietta Mary Ada Ward, the
wife of the painter. Mrs. Ward knew most of the literary characters
of the time, and we owe to her two pieces of information regarding
Home which have, I think, been forgotten. In her memoirs she
says that a lady used to help Home during the seances and " ail
as medium." She does not describe what part this assistant played,
but declares that she used to drink " two glasses of port and two
of some other beverage before she began her work." On one
occasion, she adds, her husband was present at a demonstration by
Home when Lord Lytton and Mr. S. C. Hall were there, and on
that occasion mysterious voices played a great part in the pro-
ceedings. Mr. Ward said that these direct voice phenomena, as
we call them to-day, puzzled him a good deal, although he
attributed them to skilful trickery on the part of the medium.

Mrs. Ward herself does not seem to have witnessed many
phenomena with Home. On one occasion she arrived at the house
of Mr. S. C. Hall to find him in a state of ecstasy. " You've just
missed dear Daniel," Mr. Hall exclaimed : "he floated in triumph
in through the window, round the house, and out again, and I
don't doubt the day will come when he will float round St. Paul's."

It may well be that some of my readers will, perhaps rightly,
put this down to over-emphasis or more than usual exaggeration on
the part of the enthusiastic Mr. Samuel Carter Hall. Before doing
so, however, let me add something which may tend to modify this
opinion.

One of the best contemporary exponents of what to-day we
call reportage was the Rev. C. M. Davies, who contributed articles
to the magazines and who in 1875 wrote a book about the queer
sects of London. Two years previously he had written an article
for the magazine Belgravia which he had entitled, " Something like
a Stance." For five minutes, he says, he saw D. D. Home float
round Mr. S. C. Hall's drawing-room whilst he handled him above
and below.

We can estimate Mr. Davies' credulity or otherwise by his
criticism of other mediums, notably Florence Cook, and her sittings

D. I). HOMI- : SORCERER OF klNUS

lOI

with Sir William Crookcs at which Katie King appeared. This
voting lady was supposed to be a materialized spirit produced
through the agency of the medium, Miss Cook, and Sir William
( irookes testified to the marvellous phenomena he himself witnessed
in the presence of this girl — " a trim little lady of sweet sixteen " —
as a friend of Mr. Davies called her. Whatever Sir William
Crookes may have seen or thought, it is clear that Mr. Davies did
not think much of her ; and the report of one of his colleagues,
which he published in full, indicates that the latter also believed
Miss Cook to be a clever fraud and Sir William's attitude prejudiced
and scarcely becoming to a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Another sitter at S. C. Hall's circle in Brompton was John
Bright, the economist. In his diary he records the fact that at
one seance a bell was taken from the hands of two of the party
and transferred across the circle, being finally laid on the lap of
the lady sitting next to him. He thought this curious and could
not explain it, all hands being on the table at the time. What is
to be remarked in Bright's account is that he does not say if the
transference of the bell was over or under the table, neither does
he mention the amount of light. I have a feeling, which may or
may not be justified, that the passage was under the table, and that
the use of Home's feet might be thought to be responsible for its
transference.

It must be remembered that in those days levitation both of
medium and sitters was not uncommon. The woman physician,
Dr. Harriet Chsby, was levitated along with Home in her own
lodgings. One old lady was so pleased that she told all her friends
she had now become a floater. One slightly deaf gentleman, to
whom she imparted this surprising information, was shocked.
" Poor Lady P.," he told his cronies, " since she has taken up
spiritualism she has imagined herself turned into a Yarmouth
bloater !

The attitude of the Brownings was strangely mixed. Mrs.
Browning was clearly that type of simple, good-hearted and sincere
human being who wanted to think well of people and hated to

lo - SOMli III (MAN <>M)| I II,:,

imagine thai she was the victim ol imposture. ' I In- same yeai
thai the Brownings met Home on his first visit to England Lady
Ritchie mel Mrs. Browning. "She is great upon mysticism,"
wrote Lady Ritchie in her Journal, "and listens with a solemn,
eager manner to any nonsense people like to tell her upon that
subject," or as she herself put it "to every goblin story." There
is hi lie doubt that there were serious differences of opinion between
(he pair. H. F. Chorley, the musical critic on The Athenaeum, says
that Mrs. Browning took questions of mesmerism and clairvoyance
terribly to heart, and that to stories of these marvels she lent
an ear as credulous as her trust was sincere and her heart high-
minded.

It is from the voluminous Browning correspondence that the
best idea can be gleaned on the attitude of the family on the
subject of the spirit manifestations. Prior to meeting D. D. Home
there is little evidence known to me that Robert Browning had
any very decided antipathy either to the mediums or to their
phenomena. Writing to her sister in August 1853 from Italy,
Mrs. Browning says that Robert wanted the spirits to communicate
with him, and that the fact that he could get no results provoked
him to incredulity. The year after, she tells her sister how she
had met a medium for automatic writing—" one of the frankest,
bluntest, nicest little creatures that ever took my fancy." The
lady was certainly frank. She told Mrs. Browning that one night
an exquisitely formed little spirit, some three feet high, came
running and dancing up to her close up to her knees, but when
she stooped towards it, it vanished. This tale reminds me of
Miss Anna Blackwell's story of a dozen or more spirits of handsome
young men whom she saw in her dressing-room. However that
may be, Mrs. Browning thought she would tell her small son about
the little spirit. She turned to him and asked if he would not
have liked to have seen the little spirit. " ' Oh yes,' said he,
' velly mush ! A little pretty spillet lite lat I but ' (holding his
head on one side m an attitude of consideration) ' I sint if a velly
large angel tame, I be lather aflaid.' ' Afraid,' I cried, ' why

|i. |i. IIOMH : SORCliKHK Ol' KINC

should you be afraid ? You are not afraid of the spirits who write.'
' No, not a bit but then I don't see them, dear Mama.

During their stay in Florence 111 1855 the Brownings met
Seymour Kirkup, a besotted and rather piteous old man who lived
surrounded by mediums and phenomena and who seemed to believe
almost anything. He was friendly with D. D. Home, whom he
characterised as " weak and ignorant," but was much more wrapped
up with his own medium, his spirit-child and the phantom of
Dante who once brought a live lamb from Pisa, presumably to
tempt the appetite of the old man, who lived on asses' milk and
bread served three times a day.

It was in 1855 that the Brownings saw Home at the famous
seance at Mr. Rymer's house in Ealing. In a letter to her sister
Henrietta, dated 17th August 1855, Mrs. Browning described what
happened. " We were touched by the invisible," she says, " heard
the music and raps, saw the table moved, and had sight of the hands.
Also, at the request of the medium, the spiritual hands took from
the table a garland which lay there, and placed it upon my head.
The particular hand which did this was of the largest human size,
as white as snow, and very beautiful. It was as near to me as this
hand I write with, and I saw it as distinctly. I was perfectly
calm ! not troubled in any way, and felt convinced in my own
mind that no spirit belonging to me was present on the occasion. The
hands which appeared at a distance from me I put up my glass
to look at— proving that it was not a mere mental impression, and
that they were subject to the usual laws of vision. These hands
seemed to Robert and me to come from under the table, but Mr.
Lytton saw them rise out of the wood of the table — also he tells
me . . . that he saw a spiritual (so called) arm elongate itself
as much as two yards across the table and then float away to the
windows, where it disappeared. Robert and I did not touch the
hands. Mr. Lytton and Sir Edward both did. The feel was warm
and human— rather warmer in fact than is common with a man's
hand. The music was beautiful."

A long account of this sitting was written out by Robert

104 SOMIi HUMAN ODPITIIiS

Browning in 1855 and was first printed in flic United States in
1933. He says that he could not account for the vibrations and
movements of the table, but he makes no mention of what he
afterwards used to say about the spirit-hands being attached, as In-
thought, to Home's feet. Indeed, he says that one hand crawled,
as it were, up Mr. Home's shoulder, a phenomenon that I do not
seem to remember being often recorded. Anyway, such a move-
ment would hardly be capable of explanation on the theory of the
use of Home's feet put forward by Browning and others.

It was a day or so after this seance that Home and Rymer called
on the Brownings, and Robert Browning told Home that if he
were not out of the door in half a minute he would fling him down
the stairs. As to the phenomena, Browning told his friends that he
had never before seen so impudent a piece of imposture. Although
Mrs. Browning says that neither her husband nor herself touched
the hands, Nathaniel Hawthorne says that, from what he had
heard, both had seen and touched these unearthly objects, and
that Robert Browning said that he thought they were artificial and
fixed to Home's feet as he extended these under the table. Whatever
may have been the truth, what is certain is that Robert Browning
conceived a hatred for Home which almost amounted to mania.
He used to pace up and down the room, stamp on the floor in a
frenzy, turn pale at the very mention of the man whom the artist,
R. Lehmann, called " that spirit-rapping scoundrel Home," write
to Isa Blagden calling him " this dung-ball," and made Mrs.
Browning fearful that he would assault him if they happened to
meet in some public thoroughfare. Although as the years went by
Browning grew calmer, Mrs. Browning was still saying in 1857
that her Robert, although tamer, was still gunpowder where the
name Home was concerned, although writing to Mrs. Kinney in
January 1871 we find him indulging in more violent language than
ever, and saying that he might be silly enough to soil his shoe by
kicking Home, and inveighing against those who shut their eyes
and open their arms to " bestiality incarnate."

It was in March 1856 that Lord Normanby's brother called on

n. i>. iiomi; : sorchrhr or kings

the Brownings in Paris and told them the mystery about Home,
that " mystery of iniquity " as Mrs. Browning put in a letter to
her sister, " which everybody raved about and nobody distinctly
specified." The news that Home himself was in Paris filled Mrs.
Browning with horror. Indeed, she looked so scared that Mr.
Browning promised he would be as meek as a maid and pretend
not to see the medium if they should happen to pass in the street.
By this time Mrs. Browning herself had come to the conclusion
that Home was of a very unreliable nature, " weak as a reed and
more vulgar," as she put it in a letter written in Paris in June 1856,
for, as she later expressed it, the foolish young man had succeeded
111 making himself universally disagreeable, although most people
agreed that his phenomena were above Nature.

At that time, Lord and Lady Normanby used to invite Home
to their house in Paris, and on one occasion Count Cottrell turned
his back on Home at one of their receptions, saying that he was
a worthless fellow, but at the same time relating tales of what he
had seen at Home's stances, such as a beautiful arm veiled in white
coming out of the ground, the hand taking a sheet of paper and
pencil and writing words which were seen by all. His wife was
favoured to an even greater extent. She had her dead baby on her
knees for a quarter of an hour, and the Count was permitted to
hold its hand and drew his own fingers down each of its separated
fingers.

It was at that time that Mrs. Browning declared that her husband
had had a shock. It seems that he had gone to visit a sceptical
friend who used to talk to him about the absurdity of holding such
delusions. When he arrived he found his friend's house in a state
of commotion. A seance had been held : Home's legs and arms
had been tied, but the spirit-hands came and untied the knots.
Unknown to the medium a man was smuggled under the table,
but the phenomena took place just the same. Finally the whole
room shook as if in an earthquake. Indeed, so great was the
movement that the whole circle was earthquake-sick, if I may be
permitted the expression.

io8 soMii human onniTiKS

give a hint of what was in his mind when he was describing the
supporters of the medium in Mr. Sludge.

" T's these hysterics, hybrid half and halls,
Equivocal, worthless vermin yield the fire."

Now, if Browning knew of these stories about Home, it would
explain his attitude and the fury he felt at Mrs. Browning sup
porting the medium. Moreover, this feature in Home's character
would also account for the numerous veiled references to weakness,
vulgarity and lack of sincerity which were so often levelled against
him. Let us illustrate further by considering what the Trollopes
thought of Home.

Mrs. Trollope and her eldest son, Thomas Adolphus, were in
Florence in October 1856. They had invited Home and Mr.
Rymer, at whose house Browning had seen the medium, to stay
with them, and the two remained as the guests of the Trollopes
for one month. Although Browning said that he thought Trollope
was a goose, despite his general good sense, it seems that the
Trollope family were genuinely puzzled by Home and wished to
be scrupulously fair and just to him.

As to Home's character, Trollope says that, in the ordinary
affairs of life, the medium was scarcely what could be called an
honourable or true man, and that to a greater or less degree he
was in the habit of adding to, or assisting, the manifestations of
his mental mediumship (i.e. clairvoyance, messages from the dead,
etc.). On the other hand, Trollope was convinced that the majority
of the physical phenomena were genuine. For exhibiting the spirit-
hands the room was darkened. Trollope says that to him they
looked like long kid gloves stuffed with some substance, although
he adds that he is far from asserting that they were such. It ought,
perhaps, to be added that twenty-four years previously Trollope
declared that he had never seen the hands at any time.

Generally speaking, Trollope was both doubtful and perplexed.
He says that he was not left with the conviction that his guest
was an altogether trustworthy and sincere man. On the other
hand, he was not fully persuaded of the reverse. He declares that

H. n. HOMP. : NORCKRKR Of KINGS [OQ

he saw nothing which appeared to him to compel the conclusion
chat some agency unknown to the ascertained and recognized laws
ol Nature was at work. But he did hear many communications
made in Home's presence which seemed to him wholly inexplicable
by any theory which he could bring to bear upon them.

It will be seen by these remarks that there is really little sound
evidence for the attacks made upon Home some five years later in
such journals as Punch, The Mask and Once a Week.

Take Punch, the editor of which was bent on exposing what he
considered to be the " Spiritual ' Hume '-Bugs." In a poem
published on 18th August i860 headed " Home, Great Home ! "
the first two verses read :

Through humbugs and fallacies though we may roam,
Be they never so artful, there's no case like Home.
With a lift from the spirits he'll rise in the air
(Though, as lights are put out first, we can't see him there).

Home, Home, great Home —

There's no case like Home !

Of itself his Accordion to play will begin,
(If you won't look too hard at the works hid within ;)
Spirit-hands, at his bidding, will come, touch, and go
(But you mustn't peep under the table, you know).

Home, Home, great Home —

There's no case like Home ! 1

Similarly, in The Mask for June 1868, under the title of " Fly
away, Home," the author suggests that the medium " cannot do
his stuff" outside his own premises. "One fact is patent to
every one," the article concludes, " he does not court investigation ;
for his health is never up to the mark necessary when a seance is
demanded for that purpose." Lest it be thought that all humorists
despised the medium and his work, let me hasten to add the
testimony of Arthur William Beckett, the famous Victorian writer
who, with his brother Gilbert, lived at one time in Hanover Square
over the rooms that Home himself occupied. His words are, I
think, very enlightening. " Home," he writes, " was not half a
bad fellow as I knew him." The rest is silence, but Beckett's

1 Reprinted by permission of the proprietors of Punch.

I ID

SDMI- HUMAN ODDITIKS

opinion was not one which, in my opinion, can be lightly brushed
aside. He must have known a great deal about his curious neigh
hour, in spite of the fact that he jestingly says that he never met
any furniture walking about by itself on the landings or on the
stairs. John Bigelow, the American journalist and diplomatist, on
the other hand, seems to have heard much about the medium
which can only be called derogatory. He recalls the fact that
Charles Dickens called Home a ruffian and a scoundrel ; and it is
well known that one reason why Dickens declined to make any
personal inquiry was because the conditions under which such
inquiries took place were, to quote his own words, " preposterously
wanting in the commonest securities against deceit or mistakes."
Another reason was because Dickens maintained that people lied so
boldly about what actually took place and what impression was
actually made at the time. Writing to T. A. Trollope he said
that he thought Home was a scoundrel, and in another letter
written in i860 declared that even if the medium " were demon-
strated as humbug in every microscopic cell of his skin and globule
of his blood, the disciples would still believe and worship." He
thought Home's book on incidents in his life an " odious "
publication, and in one of his articles hints at Home's influence
over young men.

Bigelow recalls how on one occasion Trollope told Dickens how
Home, when at Florence with him, used to walk up and down in
front of the house and within earshot. One day, deciding to make
a small test, Trollope said to his wife that it was just so many
years this night since our dear so-and-so was drowned. That
evening the spirit of the person mentioned came through with the
information about being drowned, but the facts were completely
different. When Bigelow reminded Dickens that Sir Edward
Lytton believed in Home, he replied that that was so, but it must
be remembered that Lytton was deaf and hated to be reminded
of it. " Do you hear these raps ? " Dickens would say, mimicking
Home. " Oh, yes per-fect-Iy, " replied Lytton. At this the table
was convulsed with laughter.

i>. i>. homi; : sorckiU'R or kinus mi

In many ways there was a curious resemblance between Mrs.
Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In both, mysticism exerted
■ i si range kind of fascination : both felt it useless to try to influence
Robert Browning, whom Rossetti describes as shaking his mane with
rage and occasionally foaming at the mouth.

It was as late as 1865 that Rossetti first began to interest himself
in spiritualism, and the famous mesmerist, Bergheim, used to give
exhibitions in a tent set up in the garden. It is not certain if
Rossetti ever saw Home : Violet Hunt says he did, but no mention
of him having done so has, I think, yet appeared in his published
papers. This is somewhat strange, as his brother records the fact
that he used to go to all the private stances to which he was
invited. He was much intrigued on one occasion when the Master
of Lindsay told him that he had seen Home rise up to the top of a
lofty room in which they happened to be. As he rose above his
head Lindsay tried to pull him down by holding on to his foot,
but he still kept on going up leaving his shoe in Lindsay's hand.
This fact cannot fail to suggest to the more suspicious that Home
may have been wearing his elastic-sided jemimas which some think
facilitated rapid insertions and withdrawals for sharp work beneath
the table.

John Ruskin was another of the personalities of the time who
saw Home. He used to attend the stances at Broadlands, the
house of the Cowper-Temples, where every effort was apparently
made to convert him. " I'm as giddy as if I had been thrown off
Strasburg steeple and stopped in the air," he writes, " but thing
after thing of this kind is being brought to me."

Before I pass on to consider fresh evidence on Home's famous
levitation in Ashley Place, I want to try to sum up the position as
regards how Home's phenomena were considered in England during
the period 1855 to 1870.

We have seen how, generally speaking, the seances were con-
sidered much more as diversions in social gatherings rather than
experiments which, in any sense of the word, could be called
scientific. Here I am, of course, referring to the sittings that

' 12 SOMH HUMAN C)i)I)l I II 1 ,

Home gave in the big London and country houses and not to (lie
series of experiments with which the name of Sir William CrooIcM
is associated. But there are one or two remarks which were made
by people of the period which rather suggest that Home's
phenomena did not differ in any startling degree from that taking
place with other mediums. For example, there is no doubt that
the Davenport Brothers (who were almost certainly fraudulent)
puzzled a great many people of the period ; and John Delaware
Lewis, who was a critic of some reputation, declared that the
manifestations which he witnessed with the notorious Mrs. Marshall
fell very little short of what has been described by an eye-witness
as having been accomplished by Mr. Home. When we remember
that the article to which Mr. Lewis was referring was the sensational
one in The Cornhill Magazine (Aug., i860) by Robert Bell, called
"Stranger Than Fiction," it is obvious that he must have been
very much impressed by what Mrs. Marshall had to show him.

One of the most interesting critical essays on his experiences in
spiritualism was that given by Viscount Amberley (Bertrand
Russell's father) in The Fortnightly Review for 1874. The Viscount
was well known for his critical but moderate views, and what he
has to say might well have been written by any student of the
physical phenomena to-day. Indeed, I find him using an expression
which I myself have employed on more than one occasion when
mentioning the difficulties with which investigators are confronted.
" Spiritual manifestations are, in fact, like wills-of-the-wisp, " he
writes, " which elude the pursuer the more provokingly the more
he chases them. He is always told that the most marvellous
phenomena happened yesterday, or in another room, or under
other conditions, or with a circle differently composed, or else the
medium was in better health ; but to-day, in this room, under
these conditions, with this circle, they persistently refuse to show
themselves." It does not seem that Viscount Amberley came to
these conclusions without trying to get personal experience of the
facts. For example, when in New York in 1867 he had a sitting
with that clever medium, Charles H. Foster, who specialized in

I>. I). IIOMK : SORCHRIiR OI ; KINli.S 11}

billet-reading and skin-writing and who had stayed with Bulwer at
Knebworth. It is clear that Amberley thought Foster a fraud,
.ill hough he does not seem to have understood how the tricks were
done, and it is noteworthy that some years earlier Punch had
satirized Foster in an amusing drawing (see Plate X).

Before proceeding to discuss the most remarkable of all D. D.
I lome's alleged levitations I want to mention another incident
which is not only highly disturbing in itself but which also may
throw a flood of light on the way some of Home's sittings were
conducted, and on the nature of the marvellous phenomena
sometimes said to occur at them.

In Mrs. Home's book on The Gift of D. D. Home (London, 1890),
.1 letter from a Mrs. Gambier is printed on p. 172, in which the
writer exhibits her faith in, and friendship for, the medium. Now
Mrs. Gambier was one of those who attended Mrs. Milner Gibson's
social seances which I have already described. The Gambiers lived
in a haunted house, and Home used to visit them and hold seances,
converting not only Mrs. Gambier and her daughters but apparently
influencing the whole family to some degree. I have not succeeded
in tracing any detailed accounts of these sittings. But one of Mrs.
Gambier's sons has left a note on the kind of thing that went on.
If we can credit his remarks they are frankly very revealing. He
says no greater charlatan ever breathed than D. D. Home, and he
finds it difficult to believe why his father did not kick the medium
out of the house. The conditions at the sittings were, he says,
" ridiculous, transparent fraud, resting merely on Home's word, a
hopelessly rotten security." For example, Home made them all
sit down in pitch darkness and bound them by a promise not to
move. Then, after a minute or two, he would turn up the light
and point out that a heavy china vase had changed its place from
the chimney-piece to the top of the piano, while he himself was
supposed to have been sitting holding one of the sitter's hands all
the time.

On another occasion he put Mrs. Gambier in touch with some
of her children who had died in India, and a number of incidents

H/L SOME human ODDITIES

and details wore given. Mr. Gambier, senior, became suspicions
and discovered that Mrs. Milner Gibson had told Home all abonl
it " down to the most minute particulars." When he tackled
Home the medium denied that Mrs. Gibson had ever said a won!
to him about it.

However we may regard these accounts (and scepticism should
not be reserved solely for favourable records), it does not seem
likely that these conditions were only to be observed at the home
of the Gambiers. If this was the kind of thing that went on how
many startling movements at a distance might be explained !
How much that many of us have pictured as taking place in
full light might really have occurred in inky darkness. Here
was an example of conversion leading to belief in everything,
whatever the conditions. It is a common condition with many
spiritualists, once they believe in the bona-fides of any particular
medium.

I now pass to the famous Ashley Place levitation. Those who
have read Lord Dunraven's account will remember that Home is
alleged to have passed out of the window of one room and in at
another. An account is given of the premises, and it is stated that
the rooms were on the third floor, and that between the window at
which Home went out and that at which he came in the wall
receded six inches.

There has always been some controversy as to where this alleged
levitation took place, but there seems no doubt that before Lord
Dunraven's death the fact that it was supposed to have occurred at
No. 9 Ashley Place was confirmed. What does not seem to have
been remembered was the fact that Sir Francis C. Burnand was
extremely interested in D. D. Home and attended a sitting with
him, and on the conclusion of the meeting cross-examined the
medium closely on a number of topics. This is not the place to
describe this conversation, for I must pass on to his statement that
Lord Dunraven himself wrote out an account of the levitation in
Ashley Place which Burnand declares in his book of recollections
that he still had in his archives. Not only does he quote from this

I). I). IIOMH : SORCIiRKR OI : KINCS MS

>ii i (Hint ol Lord Dunraven, but he actually includes a diagram to
illustrate the narrative, although unfortunately he does not say
whether this diagram was drawn by Lord Dunraven or by himself
1 1 nn i Lord Dunraven's account.

According to this story the levitation took place on the first
floor of the building, and not the third as in the other versions.
Moreover, Lord Dunraven describes the two windows as facing one
another, each being on opposite sides of a triangle. Now if this
It (lie case the whole phenomenon takes on a very different com-
plexion. The distance between the two windows may have been
something over seven feet ; but it must be realized that the picture
ol the levitation and the passing from window to window must be
. 1 1 1 1 Le different in this account from that of the classical version,
hut there is something much more serious to add to our difficulties.
I cannot discover that any windows in the least like those described
by Lord Dunraven in his letter to Sir Frances Burnand exist at
9 Ashley Place, and overlook the street. The premises do not
appear to have been much altered since the date of the incident,
and I am unable in any way to account not only for the discrepancy
between the position of the windows, but also for the fact that in
one account Lord Dunraven says that it was on the third floor,
whilst in another that it was on the first. The case therefore
remains not only one of the most troublesome mysteries in the life
of D. D. Home, but one to which further difficulties have been
added by the discovery of the additional version which was said to
have been received by Sir Francis Burnand.

We will now pass to a brief consideration of the famous
Tuileries sittings at the court of Napoleon III and the Empress
Eugenie. I am not going to discuss the story of the alleged
exposure of D. D. Home when it was said that his foot was slipped
out of his shoe and was used for purposes for which it was not
intended. Count Perovsky-Petrovo-Solovovo has analysed this
incident with his usual acuteness in both the Proceedings and Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research, and I have little to add in the
way of confirmatory evidence or otherwise in spite of ransacking

SOME mi 'man onnn ms

many diaries and memoirs to which the Count has not referred in
his published analyses. 1

What I propose to do here is rather to discuss the mystery of
Home's sudden departure from France, which was suspected by
some to have been connected with the alleged exposure, but which
I have reason to suppose was caused by something quite different.
Before dealing with this phase, however, let us take a short glance
at some of the records preserved in the memoirs and letters of the
Empress herself and some of the other more important personalities
in Napoleon's Court.

The general impression that Home seems to have made was
that of a wonder-worker whose performances were far superior to
those which were often given before the Emperor and his friends.
It has not, I think, been often remembered that the Davenport
Brothers were in Paris at one time, and that it is said that they
were exposed by Alfred de Caston, who at that time was writing
a number of books, one of which is entitled Marchands de Miracles.
In this book Caston deals with D. D. Home, but in such a reserved
and cautious manner that I cannot think that he ever could have
seen him personally, although this is very odd considering his
influence in Court circles. Anyway, he expresses complete dis-
belief in the stories about the medium, but does not attempt any-
where, as far as I have been able to discover, to describe the methods
by which he thought Home produced his miraculous effects.

Turning to the Empress herself we have some interesting
material in the volumes containing some of her private letters
which were published in Paris in 1935. In February 1857, for
example, she writes to her sister saying that that very evening she
was going to see an extraordinary man who makes phantoms appear,
and she adds that it goes without saying that she does not want to
see them for it would make her too much afraid. In March of
the same year she again writes to her sister, saying that she has seen
the medium and nothing in the whole world could give her any
idea of what she and her friends had experienced.

1 See Proc. S.P.R., 7909. XXI, 436-482. and Journ.il S.P.R., XV, 274 ff.

V

1 '• 1 '• Hi imii : si )KCi:ri;i< < >r kings 117

" 1 will /it si of all telJ you," she writes, " thai Mr. 1 lume is ,1
llun, pale man, twenty-one years of age, very awkward and with
lomething strange about his looks." When he was asked what
1 hey were going to see, he said that he did not know anything about
' ' ,or he was merely an instrument. The seance began, she says,
by a trembling of the table, which made one think of putting one's
hands on the back of a dog which had suddenly been affected by
terror. While this was going on Mr. Home had only one hand
on the table, and at the last sitting the most extraordinary things
happened. The table was a very big one, and one of the sitters
was holding a bell in one hand whilst she had another bell and the
Emperor an accordion. After each of them had asked for some-
thing to happen the two bells were taken away from them by
invisible hands and her's was put into the hand of General Espinasse,
who was sitting at the end of the table opposite the medium and
who was so incredulous and taken aback that they really thought
he was going to be ill. The Emperor's accordion then played some
( harming tunes all by itself, and a stool which was at the end of
I he room came up to her as if pushed by some unknown force,
but what she found passed all belief was what happened after that.
Not wishing to see the spirit-hands she had put a cloth on the
I able when suddenly the Emperor said to her " Look at what's
pushing the cloth towards me." Hume said that they could
I ouch it ; and as a matter of fact it was a hand which was pressing
that of the Emperor. General Espinasse actually saw it, and said
that it was a small, childish hand and she got up in order to have
a look, feeling when she returned to her seat that her dress had
been pulled and the cushion on her chair had been seized by a
hand. A moment afterwards the cloth was pushed to her side of
the table and a man's hand pressed hers. She also wanted to
press it in her turn, but when she tried to do so there was
nothing to press. At the end of the letter the Empress says that
she must see Home again and perhaps other things would then
happen.

There is no doubt that these phenomena excited enormous

Il8 SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

interest throughout Paris. Wc owe to the Marchioness Taisey ■
Chatenoy a long account of the general conditions under which
the sittings were held. She says that one must have lived in the
period to have any idea of the mama which affected society when
it came to a question of table-turning. Tables revolved in the
attic as well as in the palace ; amongst workmen as well as amongst
courtiers. They even took on a personal aspect. The Empress's
table was called " Josephine," and it had its moods which were
sometimes gay but sometimes naughty, while at times its language
was difficult to understand. It is in Madame Chatenoy's records
that we find a detailed description of the hand-chain as sometimes
used in Home's stances. Those of my readers who are interested in
following up the details of her narrative will find them recorded in
her book on the Court of Napoleon III. 1

In spite of the impression that Home was making, a general
feeling was abroad among more sober and less emotional observers
that all was not as it should be, and that certain of the phenomena
were due to adroit trickery. For example, Madame Baroche, the
wife of one of Napoleon Ill's principal ministers, says in her book
of recollections that there were some people who took him seriously,
but the majority thought that he was a clever charlatan. He liked
only to work in the dark, she says, and he was very adroit at
eliminating people who had too sharp eyes and, above all, he
avoided straining himself too much, giving the pretext that the
spirits had taken a few days off. At his command tables rose
in the air without any sign of a cord, bells moved about by
themselves and described circles, whilst an accordion travelled
about from knee to knee whilst playing by itself. I cannot refrain
from adding one story told by Madame Baroche which has not,
I think, yet found its proper place among the many tales of
practical jokes which were played on D. D. Home during the
Tuileries sittings. At one of the stances a lady felt a spirit-hand
pressing her leg. She uttered a scream and later told her friends
that she had lost sleep on account of it. " Sleep in peace," said
1 A la Cour it Napoleon III, z" id. (Paris, 1891).

D. I). HOMI- : SORC.F.RF.R OF KINGS ' I l )

M. de Pierre 10 her, " 1 was the spirit : mine was the hand.'
I low often did that kind of thing happen ? We have no means of
telling, but it is worth remembering.

As Madame Baroche put it, Home was often regarded as a
charlatan, and the writer who conceals himself under the name of
" Ferdinand Bac " actually calls him a prince of charlatans. In
his account of the medium he gives a revealing record of the
simplicity and ignorance of some of the exalted personages in
Napoleon's Court. Thus Pauline de Metternich would mix him
up with David Hume, and used to tell her friends about " that
Hume : he is that Scot who wrote a book about suicide and about
the immorality (sic /) of the soul." Prosper Merimee, who had the
greatest objection to anything to do with the occult, thought Home
was a poor performer and, like Louis Blanc, looked back to the
days when Cagliostro was performing his miracles in eighteenth-
century France. However, he concluded, this impostor fascinated
the Imperial Court.

Perhaps it may be of interest very briefly to quote the opinions
of three distinguished diplomatic figures who were living at the
period and constantly came in contact with Frenchmen who were
in touch with the goings on at the Court. Thus Earl Cowley,
who wrote a book on his experiences at the Paris Embassy during
the Second Empire, wrote to Lord Clarendon about April 1857
asking him whether he had ever heard " of a certain charlatan by
name Hume " who was half English and half American and who
had a complete hold over both the Emperor and the Empress.
Even at that time it appears that Home was producing phenomena
which could only be regarded with much suspicion. The story
was going round that the Emperor asked the medium to bring the
spirits of the first Empress and of Louis Philippe, and, having
been told that they were present in the room, declared that he
could see neither of them. Home asked him to wait a moment
and their presence would be felt. Soon afterwards, Earl Cowley
declares, the Emperor received a violent kick from behind, although
it could not be ascertained which of his predecessors had applied it.

120

SOMI; HUMAN ODni'IIIiS

Seriously speaking, Cowley continued, it was impossible to conceive
how such a man could so easily be gulled, and as he sometimes
saw the medium alone the police were becoming seriously alarmed.

Similarly, Count Hubner, the Austrian Ambassador, says that
when at the Tuileries the celebrated medium was making the heads
of quite reasonable people turn as well as the tables. The ladies
of the Court, he declared, were simply running after this impostor,
whose appearance was both insignificant and stupid. This im-
pression of the medium was not that received by Sir Horace
Rumbold who saw him during the season at Baden in 1856.
Rumbold says that one face in the throng of people could not be
forgotten. It was that of Home with his " weird haunted look " ;
and he further records the fact that it was about that time that
what he calls the medium's startling impostures were beginning to
attract public notice. This note on Home's appearance reminds
me of what Archbishop Robert Seton said when he saw the
medium wrapped in contemplation in St. Peter's in Rome. " I
never saw a face of such mental agony," he writes : "it gave me
the idea of a soul in conflict. ..." Regarding Home's supposed
tricks Octave Aubry said that sceptics were beginning to assert
that the phantom hand was simply the medium's foot which he
had adroitly withdrawn from his shoe. Another account of what
was supposed to have happened was that given by Viscount
Beaumont- Vassy, who published his recollections of the Second
Empire in 1874. He declares that Home was conducting himself
at the Tuileries with consummate impudence. It is said, he writes,
that altogether apart from his other tricks he had the audacity to
propose to the Emperor that he should touch the inert hand of
Queen Hortense under the table, and when Napoleon accepted, he
did not think twice before sliding his foot out of its patent leather
shoe and presenting it to be touched by the Emperor. In this
way, he goes on, Home had passed all permitted limits not only
from the point of view of manners in general, but even also, people
say, in matters of honesty and the police had given orders for his
expulsion.

[>. i). iiomi; : sorchrhr or kinds

It is here that mention is made of some of the reasons which
were alleged to have been responsible for the sudden disappearance
ol the medium from France. The whole episode has been glossed
over by Mrs. Home in her Life of the medium, and contemporary
records merely give vague suggestions and rumours. That these
rumours were persistent and troublesome we know from Home
himself, since he deals with them in one of his own books, but
(lie real truth about the expulsion does not seem to have been
recorded anywhere with absolute certainty. I have reason to think
that there was more than one cause ; and it is recorded in a number
of places that he was considered by some to have been a German
spy, although I do not think that there is any truth whatever in
the assertion. What is much more important is a passage in the
memoirs of Count M. R. Horace de Salviac de Viel-Castel, a man
of biting and sarcastic wit, who declares that Home was accused
not only of robbery but also of unnatural practices and that he was
thrown into the prison at Mazas, a story heard also in Paris by the
1st Earl of Lytton, who took a sort of malignant pleasure in it.
Viel-Castel also declares that it was well known that Home was
having an affair with Ernest Baroche, and that the thing had been
talked about throughout Paris. By a stroke of luck I have been
able to run this story to earth in the diary of young Baroche's own
mother, from whose memoirs I have already quoted. She says that
what happened was simply that Ernest Baroche went to stay with
Home at his apartment in order that Baroche might be able to
observe some of the more startling and spontaneous phenomena.
According to Madame Baroche, what Ernest saw confirmed him in
his belief that Home was merely a consummate charlatan, but who
possessed to a high degree powers of magnetism and a form of
fascination. How far this story accounts for the rumour to which
Viel-Castel alludes I am not prepared to say, but I suspect that
there is more in it than at first sight appears. " Ferdinand Bac "
gives a startling series of statements regarding what occurred. He
says that in 1858 a whole series of denunciations began pouring
into police quarters in Paris. First of all these were anonymous

122

SOMK HUMAN ODIMTIIiS

and gave precise details about petty thefts of money by Home al
the Tuileries. Other accusations were of a more delicate type j
and the most flagrant crimes against manners were attributed to
Home, all of which were completely in accord with what we have
heard about the supposed mystery of iniquity. " Bac " says that
the rumour of this immense scandal filled the Court with con-
sternation. When Home was questioned by the police he showed
himself so fully acquainted with the scandalous secrets of the Court
that an exposure would have covered the Imperial House with the
laughter of the entire world. Home was put into the prison of
Mazas ; and whilst there did not hesitate to give names, addresses
and facts which literally terrified the police in their turn. A public
trial had to be avoided at all costs. He was, therefore, quietly
escorted to the frontier.

In commenting upon this scandal I ought, perhaps, to say that
I do not think that the evidence is in any way sufficient to establish
its authenticity. The truth, I suspect, lies in a somewhat different
direction. Prior to Home's visit to France a fearful homosexual
scandal was uncovered in Napoleon's Court. I am unable to
discover any precise details of this since every effort was made to
hush it up, but an account of it was given verbally to Mr. H. S.
Ashbee, who prints it in one of his privately issued volumes.
When Home arrived in Paris it seems to be probable that his
reputation would have preceded him and that he would have been
immediately approached by those persons who thought that he was
one of them. Home was essentially of a weak nature, and it may
well be that he allowed himself to be put into a compromising
position without realizing the importance of what he was doing.
Moreover, his close connection with the Imperial Family made the
possibility of a further scandal even more dangerous, and thus it
was that he was asked to leave France without any formal charge
being preferied against him. Not only was it a case of morals :
it was also a case of the influence that he had on the Emperor in
relation to his prophecies, of which his statement that the Prince
Imperial would not come to the throne was not the least important.

I), l). HOMli : SORCIiRBR OI KINGS

12?

Thus the history of Home's departure from France can be said,
1 think, to have little, if any, connection with the alleged exposure.
A further fact to support my interpretation is certain evidence
which I have unearthed which suggests that, after Home's de-
parture, table-turning circles were continued by some members of
the Court as a cloak behind which the most undesirable practices
were carried on, and which led to a minor scandal which has not
been forgotten.

We will now pass on to a consideration of the sensational legal
case, which so intrigued London society in 1868. There is little
doubt that both the case itself and its result were used by the
enemies of Home to cast discredit upon him and to pretend that
the dishonesty and lack of sincerity of the medium were amply
proved.

I have some reasons for thinking, however, that these views
were mistaken, and I have often been somewhat surprised that so
many modern writers have accepted them, until I realized that their
prejudices as regards alleged psychic phenomena were probably
responsible for their lack of critical caution when dealing with the
matter.

In order to put the case into a more true perspective let us
begin by again asking the question previously put at the beginning
of this chapter. What was it that really motivated Mrs. Jane Lyon
in wishing to adopt D. D. Home as her son and in settling on him
a comfortable income for life ?

The story of the Lyon-Home case in 1868 is briefly this. Mrs.
Lyon, a widow aged 75, within a few days after first seeing Home,
was induced, from her belief that she was fulfilling the wishes of
her deceased husband, conveyed to her through the mediumship of
Home, to adopt him as her son and transfer £24,000 to him ; to
make a will in his favour ; afterwards to give him a further sum
of £6,000 ; and also to settle upon him, subject to her life interest,
the reversion of £30,000, the gifts being made without consideration
and without power of revocation.

It was held by the court that the relation proved to have existed

' SDMI-; in imam ODDI riES

between Mrs. Lyon and Home implied the exercise of dominion
and influence by the medium over Mrs. Lyon's mind ; and con-
sequently, that as Home had failed to prove that these voluntary
gifts were the pure, voluntary, well-understood acts of Mrs. Lyon's
mind, they must be 'set aside.

Now, although it is clear that Mrs. Lyon's action was, to a
certain extent at least, influenced by the messages which were said
to proceed from her late husband, there is abundant evidence to
show that Mrs. Lyon was influenced by other motives, and that
little attempt to show this was made at the time and, as far as I
know, has never been honestly faced. To start at the beginning
we must inquire who Mrs. Lyon was before she was married. Jane
Lyon was formerly Jane Gibson, the illegitimate daughter of one
Matthew Gibson, a Newcastle tradesman, who later became a
farmer. As was customary at that time her relations ignored her,
and she grew up, as was then so commonly the case, with severe
mental conflicts and neurotic difficulties. Part of her conflict was
resolved when she married Charles Lyon. It is not, I think,
generally understood who Charles Lyon was. I must confess that
I under-estimated his importance till I came across a tale of how
Dean Henry George Liddell— the famous Liddell of Liddell and
Scott's Creek Lexicon — had invited Robert Browning to Oxford in
1868, and there poured into his ear what he called the rascality
of Home, which naturally much pleased the poet. This emotional
excitement on the part of the Dean of Christ Church seemed to me
very odd ; but the reason was soon found when I discovered that
he had married Charles Lyon's sister who, according to the Dictionary
oj National Biography, was the niece of the 8th Earl of Strathmore,
but who, as a matter of fact, was his granddaughter. Charles Lyon
was, therefore, the grandson of the 8th Earl, brother-in-law of
Dean Liddell, and a relation of the present Queen of England.

The result of Miss Gibson's marriage to Charles Lyon was that
the pair were practically boycotted by his family, although the
honeymoon was spent in a cottage near Glamis Castle. Mr. Lyon
did not care for the behaviour of his relations, neither did his wife.

I), i). HOME! SORCERER OF KINGS

12 J

s

When he died in 1859 he left the greater part ol his wealth to Jane,
who did not know what to do with it as her tastes and manner of
life were exceedingly simple.

I have already said that Jane Lyon suffered severe conflict on
account of her birth. I now submit for consideration the idea that
she was determined to pay out her husband's relatives for their
ghting behaviour towards her because she was unable to mix
among people living in the higher social scales. Consumed by this
passion Jane Lyon saw her golden opportunity in D. D. Home.
Here was a sorcerer of kings, a man who had received gifts and
favours from royal personages and their followers, and who could
produce manifestations which were regarded with awe by the
highest in the land. Were she able to link up with Home the
dream of her life would come true. She would then tread the soft
carpets of a king's palace and gain free and welcome entrance to
Imperial Courts.

Thus, in his testimony, Home mentioned that her interest in
his aristocratic connections was greater than in his spiritualistic
activities for, as she herself is reported to have said, Home's gift
would bring people to him " and that is what I want. I shall like
to see your friends, and nothing will spite my husband's family
more than to see me among great folks."

Here, then, was the motivating force behind Mrs. Lyon's desire
for association with D. D. Home. To spite the haughty Lyon
family with whom her husband had broken and which had regarded
her with contemptuous indifference was to fulfil one of the dearest
wishes of her heart, and for this money was no object. She had
few to whom she could leave it. By giving it to Home she would
satisfy her craving for revenge, move in the high social circles in
which she had always longed to be received, and in addition secure
for herself a comfortable ending to her rapidly declining years.
The influences which determined her action were not the spiritual
influences exercised through the medium, although they played their \
part : they were the driving forces behind her obsession which had
derived its power from the conflict within her.

tz6

SOMI-: HUMAN t II > I > I 1 I J

] would suggest, therefore, that Home was almost entirely
guiltless in the affair of Lyon v. Home. We do not know why
Mrs. Lyon changed her mind. Possibly she was approached by
others interested in the disposal of her wealth : possibly she realized
that the state of Home's health was such that his movements in
high society were likely to become increasingly circumscribed.
Whatever may have been the precise reason Mrs. Lyon showed
herself in full possession of her faculties when under cross-
examination. She was a hard-headed woman and knew what she
wanted. She was far from being the half-witted and crack-brained
old lady that she has been painted. What finally swayed her was
probably the conviction that what she wanted was not to be got
in the way she had planned. For that she would have paid much ;
but she was a woman who wanted to receive full value for her
money. Revenge would have been sweet, but she had miscalculated
the means by which she would obtain it. To D. D. Home such
a plan would not, I think, have been understood. His conflict
was of a different order in which money played but a small part.
Even to Mrs. Lyon it was but a means to an end. And when that
end was almost within her grasp, nay, when it actually was in
her grasp, she realized that it was melting away just like those
spirit-hands through the uncanny behaviour of which she had
hoped to achieve it. Jane Lyon died an unhappy and embittered
woman.

I have now attempted to answer the questions to which I
directed the reader's attention at the beginning of this chapter.
Let us see if we can sum up as briefly as possible the lessons which
can be learned in the course of the discussion.

It may be thought by some that this account of certain aspects
in the life of Home are anecdotes which are unworthy of serious
consideration. But I suspect that there are some who will realize
how carefully I have chosen the points to be considered and the
reasons why I have dealt with them. D. D. Home belongs to
history. He was one of the most interesting and curious characters
of his period, and even the Dictionary of National Biography recognizes

I). I). HOMIi : SORCIiRHR OF KINiiS

i-'7

htl importance. Lor us his character and the nature of his
phenomena cannot fail to be of importance.

In the case of D. D. Home we have seen how his phenomena
were regarded at the time. Was he merely a clever exponent of
1 rickety in advance of his time, or had he in fact powers the nature
of which we know little or nothing ? I shall not attempt to answer
this question even if I were able to do so. But it might, perhaps,
help some to make up their minds if I drew their attention to three
modern cases of great importance. I refer to the mediumship of the
late Maria Silbert, Carlos Mirabelli and Mrs. X of Massachusetts.

Those who have studied the evidence for the alleged spirit-hands
of D. D. Home cannot fail to have been struck by their strong
resemblance to those displayed by Maria Silbert. The touches
beneath the table and the manipulation of objects placed there by
(he sitters are almost precisely similar to those presented by the
Austrian medium. Belief in her reached the same fantastic heights
as that with D. D. Home. Phantoms accompanied her on moon-
light walks ; she passed through solid doors ; an automobile
travelled mile upon mile, up hill and down dale, with no motive
power except that supplied by the old lady's mediumship. We
know now how Mrs. Silbert used her feet beneath the table, and
how skilled her toes were in using a metal stylus for engraving on
metal. Many of her other methods are also known, the secrets of
which will, I hope, never be published. Her similarity to Home
in many respects was startling. Was Home, so to speak, a Maria
Silbert born before his time ? Possibly. In the case of Mirabelli
in South America the same problem was presented. Phenomena
even more astounding than those with Home were reported with
him. Many professional people of standing were said to have
testified to these marvels, but unfortunately confirmatory evidence is
lacking to a surprising and even suspicious degree.

It is, however, the case in Massachusetts that is of the greatest
interest. 1 Here the most incredible phenomena were reported.

1 Full reports of this case have not yet been published so I am preserving the
anonymity of the medium.

SOMK HUMAN OODITII-S

Music as if by a full orchestra filled the seance room : full form

phantoms stood between the curtains of the cabinet presentlM
chalices out of which the sitters drank : materialized but invisible
dogs lay on the laps of favoured visitors and were fondled by them
With Home it was Sophia Cottrell's baby which lay on her lap |
with Mrs. X it was a dog. In both cases the sitters were certain
of their facts. What were those facts ? I cannot say what they
may have been with D. D. Home, but I know what they were
when I went to Massachusetts. There were no phenomena whal
ever Whilst the sitters listened to the exquisite music, I heard
nothing, not even the strains of a distant radio. No materialized
dog settled on my hands as I sat waiting. No phantom stood in
the cabinet to hold out a chalice to me. The medium was, I think
an honest woman. If incredible phenomena were being built up
around her by a process of suggestion and hallucination on the
grand scale, then that was not her fault, but her good fortune
The evidence suggests that there were scarcely any phenomena
with her beyond those supplied by the imagination of the sitters
Was anything like this going on with D. D. Home ? Much of
the evidence suggests it, although I would not go so far as to say
that it was certain. You may doubt the facts in the case of Mrs X
of Massachusetts. All I can do is to borrow if I may, and in
another connection, what Mrs. Browning said to her sister about
the Guldenstubbe" writings : " Smile Arabel-but such things are
so indeed.

chapter six

ANGEL ANNA : THE WOMAN WHO FAILED

I r was in the year 1774 tnat Harrodsburg was founded in Kentucky.
Although the earliest settlement in the Blue Grass State, it never
attained the size and opulence of a large American city. Standing
KHne fifty kilometres south of Frankfoit, the capital, Harrodsburg
continued to remain a small town, noted for its mineral waters and
I lie beauty of its buildings.

During the nineteenth century German immigration to the
I 'nited States, especially between the years 1846 and 1854, reached
.1 peak ; and it may well be that some of the newcomers settled in
I larrodsburg. At any rate it seems that, in 1849, a musician
calling himself " Professor " John C. F. R. Salomon and claiming
!o be a political refugee was living there, and it is possible that his
wife, Eliza, was of Spanish extraction. However that may be, on
9th February 1849 a daughter, Editha, was born to them, although
her first name does not appear to be known with absolute certainty.
Little has been recorded of her childhood. She went to school
both in New York City and in Brooklyn, and was noted for her
insubordination and wild pranks.

During the next twenty years hardly anything is known of her
life and movements. It is said that she gave lectures both in
New York City and elsewhere, proclaiming herself to be the
daughter of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, better known
as " Lola Montez " (1818-61), the dancer and one time mistress
of Ludwig I of Bavaria. It is possible that she had read a good
deal about this adventuress, and had made the determination to
follow in her footsteps, although it does not seem that she went
about it in a way that might be thought to ensure success.

It was in June 1870 that she came into collision with another
remarkable woman, the famous Victoria Claflin Woodhull Martin,

129

SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

as she afterwards became, who, two years later, was to be nominal ci I
by the Equal Rights Party as candidate for President of the United
States.

At that time Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin,
" the bewitching brokers " as they were called, had an office in
New York City, and one day Victoria Woodhull was surprised to
hear that an affidavit, dated 22nd June 1870, had been filed, stating
that Editha Gilbert Montez had, on 26th May 1870, deposited a
diamond ring valued at .$4000 and $2000 in Treasury notes with
her for safe keeping, and that the said Victoria Woodhull now
refused to give them up. The case came into court and excited a
good deal of interest at the time. Editha appeared wearing a grey
dress, a waterproof cloak and a straw hat of a type commonly worn
by men of the period. She said that she had called at the office,
where she had found Mrs Woodhull and her friend Colonel Blood,
before 26th May when she had handed over her property for safe
custody. It appeared that at the meeting Editha had hinted that
she herself would like to become a female broker, and that Mrs.
Woodhull soon saw that she was a woman with a brain which only
needed exercising. On the other hand, her sister, Tennessee, said
that Editha would do well enough if she were a good clairvoyant,
an opinion doubtless founded on the experience of the Claflin
sisters when they were travelling mediums, and suggestive of the
fact that Editha herself had had a try at the same game.

In giving her evidence Mrs. Woodhull said that Editha had
called upon her saying that she was the daughter of Lola Montez,
that she had no money, and that if she could not obtain some relief
she would throw herself in the river or go on the streets, a sure
way of attracting the sympathy of Mrs. Woodhull, who thereupon
gave her $5. Editha then told her that she was thinking of giving
some lectures at the Steinway Hall in New York, and Mrs Woodhull
told her that if she were honest she would find plenty of friends,
but if she were a fraud she would soon find numerous enemies.

During the course of the hearing it came out that Mrs. Woodhull
was not the only person whom Editha had approached with her

ANGEL ANNA

["HE WOMAN WHO FAILED

story of distress. Ivan C. Michels testified that she had called on
him saying that she was a writer, and giving the name oi Claudia
D'Arvie on one occasion and of Blanche Solomons on another.

The evidence having been heard, the case was dismissed ; and
Editha was handed over to the care of the Commissioner of Public
Charities and Correction in order to await a medical examination
to ascertain whether or not she was of sound mind, as it had been
disclosed that she had duped a number of philanthropic ladies who
had interested themselves in her case.

When Editha was removed from the court it seems that she
was taken for observation to a mental institution on Blackwell's
Island, in the East River, off New York City. There she came into
contact with a certain Paul Noel Messant, who was much attracted
to her, and whom she married on 5th February of the following
year. One child, Alice, was apparently born to them, but Mr.
Messant died in 1872 and his wife was again thrown upon her own
resources.

After the death of her husband Editha seems to have been left
in much perplexity as to her future. She was not a woman,
however, to be frightened by the prospects of poverty or loneliness.
Of immense energy, initiative, daring and cunning, it seems that,
as Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee had suggested, she decided to
become a spiritualistic medium, a profession in which her artful
knavery and capacity for brazen imposture might find full scope.
She soon found a manager for the business, John W. Randolph
by name, and then proceeded to travel round the country giving
demonstrations, lectures and doubtless numbers of private seances.

By 1884 Editha Gilbert Montez, or Angel Anna as she was
often called by devoted admirers, was firmly established. Five
years earlier she had contracted an alliance with Joseph H. Diss
Debar, a surveyor and many years her senior, who was connected
with problems of immigration, and who had published in 1870 at
Parkersburg The West Virginia handbook and immigrants' guide. His
hobby was painting ; and although his powers as an artist were
somewhat limited, it may well be that his capacity in this direction

SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

suggested to Anna the mediumistic speciality for which she was U<
become widely known. This part of her performance consisted in
the production of " spirit-pictures " on blank cards, a phenomenon
which was very popular in those days, and one which was pari d
the repertoire of the famous rapping medium, Margaret Fox, who,
in 1870, produced a picture purporting to be by Raphael, although
those who were privileged to see the result seemed to think thai,
as the record kindly puts it, " a more perfect production WU
expected."

In the case of Angel Anna the procedure was somewhat as
follows. A small, plain, white square of cardboard was handed to
one of the members of the circle for examination. After having
been told to mark it, he was instructed to put it on the top of
his head so that the edge of the card rested on it with the marked
face in front. Anna then proceeded to hold some of the sitters'
hands, indulge in one or two squirms, and then tell the lady or
gentleman in charge of the card to look at it. There on the
unmarked side of the card was a fresh little painting which would
clearly have taken an artist an hour or more to execute. It was
obvious to the sitters that this medium had remarkable powers,
and so the stories about her grew more and more fantastic as time
went on.

One day Angel Anna was disporting herself in the sea. She
was getting enormously fat as if afflicted by some disease, and with
her prominent eyebrows and low retreating forehead, she must
have presented a strange appearance bobbing up and down in the
waves. It so happened that one of her devotees was standing on
the beach, and seeing the chance of a really convincing test, he
took a blank card from his pocket and suggested to the bathing
belle that she might use her psychic influence to produce a picture
on it whilst he held it in his hand. His wish was gratified : a
pretty picture soon adorned the surface of the card which formerly
had been blank, and all doubts were cast away. Angel Anna had
arrived !

As the years went by, Mrs. Diss Debar, alias Editha Gilbert

ANGEL ANNA: THE WOMAN WHO FAILED 1 33

Monte/., prospered in her business, but she was not contented
wilh the small and insignificant clientele which importuned her for
Ml lings. Her net was cast for bigger fish ; and soon she had
landed one from whom she expected some handsome returns. This
was no other than Mr. Luther R. Marsh, the famous New York
lawyer, who had a fine house at 166 Madison Avenue. He was
one of the many professional and business men in the United
States whose credulity and gullibility over spiritualism were only
equalled by their sagacity and acuteness in legal and commercial
matters. Marsh rather fancied himself as an art critic and con-
noisseur, and since the death of his wife had turned to spiritualism
lor consolation. Angel Anna's specialities were just suited to him.
The pictures produced through her mediumship thrilled him ; and
doubtless additional attractions were forthcoming if suitable
arrangements could be made. Thus it was not long before his
house was used by the medium and " General " Diss Debar, as
he was called, and transformed into a Temple of Truth where
sittings were given and further dupes secured. Visitors to the
establishment, who had known the house in the days when Mr.
and Mrs. Marsh used to receive their guests there, were somewhat
surprised to find Anna reclining upon a silken covered sofa, and
arrayed in the gowns and jewels which the lawyer's wife was
accustomed to wear in earlier days.

The pictures produced by the medium varied in size. Some
of them, as, for example, a fine portrait of the Emperor Claudius,
were as big as 50 by 72 inches ; others were smaller and handier
to hold in the hand and admire. It was said that now and then
the images used to " blush out on a virgin canvas " in full
sunlight, and occasionally and on very special terms a favoured
sitter would be allowed to see the " precipitation " actually taking
place as he held the canvas in front of a mirror. The paint was
fresh and wet and it took several days to dry. Many of the
greatest artists were accustomed to make use of the mediumship
of Angel Anna. She was the vehicle through which such painters
as Michelangelo, Murillo, Raphael and Rembrandt demonstrated

134 SOMH HUMAN ODDITIES

their mastery of the brush. Not all ol the pictures, however,
were produced the same way. Mr. Diss Debar obviously coulil
not keep pace with the demand, especially where larger pictures
had to be produced. So recourse was had to ready-made examples,
and it was said that some thirty-nine of the productions had been
stolen from a picture dealer.

Even now, however, Angel Anna was not content. She was
always reaching out for fresh conquests and new adventures in
which her striking abilities might find freer and more untrammelled
scope. Lawyer Marsh had to be bled still further, and the next
stage was to persuade him to transfer his house in Madison Avenue
" to Mrs. Diss Debar and her heirs for ever." Accordingly, this
was done ; but the sense of elation on the part of Anna which
greeted the signing of the deed was not to last for long. Mr. Marsh
became suspicious : his friends implored him to realize what was
going on : other sitters were not so blind as he was, and Anna,
like all successful fraudulent mediums, was occasionally careless.
For example, one day, when she was presenting the picture test, a
sitter saw the plain card being exchanged for one on which a picture
had already been painted ; and sceptical people could not help
wondering if " General " Debar would not finally get tired of
working away in his room upstairs painting cards for use in the
seances which were going on all the time. At any rate the day
arrived when Marsh saw fit to withdraw the transfer of his house,
and the result was that the case came into the courts. It created
a sensation.

On nth April 1888 Anna was arrested, and the " portly
swindler," as the Press described her, made much of the blaze of
publicity which surrounded the personalities who formed the centre
of the drama. At the hearing on 16th April much was heard about
the mysterious death of a certain Mr. Loewenherz, with whom, it
appeared, Angel Anna had at one time lived ; and on 20th April
the famous conjurer, Mr. Carl Hertz, was called as a witness 1 to
explain how Anna's tricks were done. On that day Mrs Debar

1 See his A Modern Mystery Merchant (London, 1924).

ANGEL ANNA : THE WOMAN WHO FAILED

was in her clement. She swept to her seal in court like a dance
queen entering the ballroom ; and the impression she made was
such that on 22nd April the American Press had much to say
about her. As to " The Diss Debar," said one paper, " her face
is shaky with fat— but the eyes of her ! They are bright as crystals
and she works them indefatigably. . . . They say whatever she
pleases." Certainly, Angel Anna's eyes, like those of Victoria
Woodhull, were one of her strong points. As one reporter ex-
pressed it, they " sparkled like a telephone wire in a thunderstorm."

On 30th April she herself gave evidence in her defence. Asked
her name by Mr. Justice Kilbreth, she replied that she scarcely
knew what it was, a retort which was met with smiling incredulity.
At a later sitting of the court she was more expansive, and explained
how she was under the direction of a Council of ten august per-
sonages in the spirit world, among them being Cicero, Homer and
Socrates. If Victoria Woodhull had had Demosthenes as a spirit
guide, perhaps she was thinking that she would have ten such
unseen helpers. It was through clairaucUence, she said, that they
established communication with her. She herself possessed
clairvoyant vision.

On 15th June the jury retired to consider the verdict. They
were eleven to one for a conviction, the recalcitrant juryman being
an Englishman, Galbraith by name, who was apparently a believer
in the genuineness of the phenomena presented by the medium.
The next day agreement was reached, and a verdict of guilty with
a recommendation to mercy was brought in. Sentence was pro-
nounced on 18th June, and Angel Anna realized that^she might
have to spend six months in a penitentiary on Blackwell's Island.

Whilst in custody awaiting sentence she was an exemplary
prisoner. Full of consideration and sympathy, she used to dis-
tribute money to the many vagrants and poor persons who were
apprehended during her stay. To them at least she was still an
angel.

In spite of everything that had been brought out at the trial
Mr. Marsh preserved his faith, and continued what he doubtless

SOM1; HUMAN ODniTIRS

called his spiritualistic " investigations." In 1903 another case
was heard in the courts, in which it appeared that Marsh hid
transferred some insurance policies whilst acting on instructions
from the spirit world. The judge found that the medium con
cerned was a thief and a fraud, and the transference was set aside
as invalid.

The years that immediately followed Mrs. Debar's release from
jail were not particularly eventful. Rumour and scandal were rife,
and the spiritualists were not at all pleased that the Luther-Marsh
case had received so much publicity. The fact that it was said
that Anna disclaimed the title of " spiritualist " made believers
especially spiteful. It was said that " while there is no doubt in
the minds of all well-meaning spiritualists " that she was not all
she should have been as a representative of spiritualism, " yet her
very adventurous nature and want of principle has so stirred the
public at large that it has reacted for good on our own people,
and brought them out in reply, both in the papers and public
meetings, against our accusers and her own." It certainly seemed
a poor consolation ; and an English spiritualist paper, whilst still
maintaining that without doubt she was "an extraordinary medium,"
declared, however, that she was of the Blavatsky type, minus
intellect, and that she was " nothing that implies the recognition
of principles," a hasty and somewhat unfair delineation.

In 1895, report has it that Anna married a Colonel William
McGowan, who, curiously enough, like Mr. Messant, died the year
after his marriage ; and two years later she met a young man,
Jackson by name, who was to exercise a profound influence on her
life and future destiny.

Frank Dutton Jackson, who for some years had lived in San
Francisco and in Oakland, California, was the son of a super-
intendent of the S. and J. W. McNair estates, which were situated
in the Golden State. After leaving home he entered the grain
business in Chicago, but soon left to study at a Presbyterian college,
from which it seemed that he hoped to enter the Ministry. Later
on he went to Florida for eighteen months to plan a fruitarian

ANCil-l. ANNA: III! WOMAN WHO I All. HI)

colony, buying 7000 acres in Lee County. At the tune thai he
first met Anna (who was then nearly fifty) he must have been about
thirty-two or thirty-three years old.

We do not know what it was that brought the strange couple
together. Jackson was somewhat frail and of slight build, whilst
his partner was exceedingly stout, and probably weighed nearly
twenty stone. However that may be, their marriage was solemnized
in New Orleans on 13th November 1898. In the marriage certificate
Jackson was described as a native of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and
Anna was called Widow McGowan, Princess Editha Loleta,
Baroness Rosenthal, Countess of Landsfeld, a native of Florence,
Italy, daughter of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, and Lola Montez,
Countess of Landsfeld.

The reception was held at the home of Jessie H. Massie in
New Orleans ; and the pair took up their residence at the house
of Mrs. Mack, at 531 First Street, a tumble-down, dilapidated and
neglected piece of property in the same city.

It was not long before Mr. and Mrs. Jackson began to operate
in New Orleans in apparently the same way that Anna had done
before her marriage. Their work was equally divided : Anna
undertook the " phenomenal " side of the business, whilst Jackson
probably provided the talk and uplifting spiritual addresses, for
which his study at the Presbyterian college had probably well fitted
him. But in 1899 they were in trouble again. It appears that
Frank and Anna had moved out to Bucktown in Jefferson Parish,
and that the neighbours, when they realized that the visitors were
the notorious mediums, had strongly objected. Apart from their
activities in the field of occultism, it was said that Anna used to
stop small children on their way to school and persuade them
to come into the house by offering them pieces of candy. The
parents did not know what went on and were inclined to be
suspicious. At any rate complaints were made, and on 6th May
1899 the Deputy Sheriff gave orders that they were to be ejected,
which was promptly done amid loud protests from Anna, who
demanded her rights as an American citizen. Indeed, so great

SOMB

HUMAN ODDITIES

was the outcry that the next day they were both arrested, and the
Press duly recorded the seizure of the " notorious confidence
woman and medium," and of her " dapper, little blonde-haired
husband," or as one paper unkindly put it, " the fat fake and her
little man."

In due course Anna, with bizarre trimmings to her hat and
frock, appeared in court and was charged with being a " dangerous
and suspicious character " ; whilst the police hinted that, had the
proper complaints been forthcoming, they would have acted before
in order to check the numerous swindles of which they were
cognizant.

Having heard the case Recorder Grandjean gave them the
alternative of leaving the parish within forty-eight hours or
of going to prison for thirty days.

The Jacksons immediately got busy settling up their affairs.
But even then they had to ask for an extension of the time limit,
which was granted, but they overstayed their time and were again
arrested on 16th May, this time being charged with fortune-telling.

Anna appeared in court arrayed in a flowing gown, which made
her look more like a priestess of some strange cult than a defendant
in a serious legal action, where swindling was the principal charge.
Her appearance, however, did little to mitigate her sentence ; and
the pair were fined $25 or thirty days. They went to prison.

It is, I think, uncertain whether the authorities would have
been able, had they wished, to prefer against the couple other
charges of a much more serious nature than that of mere fortune-
telling. Strange stories were going about that the Order of the
Crystal Star, which Anna was running, was an organization in
which the cult of spiritualism was mixed up with other activities
in which Jackson played a prominent part, and in which women
" patients " were the willing or unwilling victims. Perhaps from
the legal point of view it was impossible to convict them. The
women may all have been of age, and were so deeply involved that
their own complicity would have been difficult to disprove. At
that time New Orleans was a wide-open town, and its fame was

ANNA

llll WOMAN WHO I ■ A. 1 1 . 1 ■ I >

spread ail over the United Stales. Brothels of every type llounshed,
and the erotic shows and " circuses " were largely patronized.
More private and exclusive shows were probably also in demand ;
and when these were mixed up with pseudo-religious observances
an added spice was given to the performances. At any rate no
action was taken by the police, and this side of the pair's activities
received no publicity in the newspapers, even though it was
whispered that the asylum contained female inmates who had lost
(heir reason on account of the experiences they had gone through
in Anna's dimly lighted and mysterious parlours.

When Mrs. Jackson and her husband came out of prison their
minds were made up. They would no longer stay in a country
where they were hounded about from place to place, but shake the
dust of America off their feet and go to England, where plenty of
dupes were to be found, judging from the pages of the occult
Press. Thus, towards the end of the year, and provided with
money from some unknown source, they sailed for England, and
after having visited Paris, they returned to London, where they
remained but for a short time. In Paris they apparently got into
touch with a Mr. Ltddell MacGregor Mathers, who ran an esoteric
society called the Order of the Golden Dawn. Anna went to see
Mr. Mathers, and gave him some remarkable demonstrations of her
mediumistic powers in the realm of clairvoyance and in the super-
normal acquisition of knowledge. He was apparently somewhat
impressed by her, but as usual she paid him out for his confidence
by walking off with some of his property, including some books of
ritual of the Order of the Golden Dawn.

It seems that at one time the pair were running an outfit of a
rather similar nature under the title of the Koreshan Unity, which
Anna claimed to have founded in 1866, but later this was changed
to that of the Theocratic Unity, the ritual of which being very
similar, if not identical with that of the Order of the Golden
Dawn, and which may have been derived from the material stolen
from Mr. Mathers. The founder of the " Koreshan Ecclesia," or
Church Triumphant (which must not be confused with the Church

'•1° SOME human ODDITIES

Triumphant of G, J. Schweinfurth), was Cyrus Teed, the basis of
the cult being Jove of one's neighbour. Three divisions are to be
distinguished— the Church, the College and the Society Arch-
Triumphant. Communal life is ordained, and celibacy is essential.
Six houses were held in common by the Order in Chicago about
1893, but later the Order disintegrated and the members dispersed.

After a short time in Paris the Jacksons returned to London,
and thence on 12th April 1900 they took ship to South Africa,
where they arrived towards the beginning of May.

Soon after their arrival, readers of the Cape Town Press began
to notice advertisements appearing in the newspapers in which it
was stated that a College of Occult Science had been opened at
95 Bree Street, where the Swami Viva Ananda (who also, it seems,
was sometimes called Madame Helena), assisted by a qualified lady
doctor, Mary Adams, and a Mr. Theodore Horos gave advice and
treatment to those searching for the truth and seeking occult
knowledge and spiritual healing. From ten in the morning till
eight in the evening the rooms were open for scientific palmistry,
advice on all private matters, spirit writings, massage and magnetic
movements. Madame Helena, " the world's most marvellous
seeress and clairvoyant," who claimed to have been educated among
the Mahatmas and to be in communion with the spirit world, was
daily in attendance, giving lectures and challenging full and frank
inquiry. The " religion of charity " was preached ; and Madame ''s
" imposing presence " soon brought the believers in, a dozen or
more pupils enrolling for the course.

After having completed their studies the pupils of the Swami
were given a certificate of proficiency, which stated that the holder
was authorized to " treat and teach all the subtle occult laws,"
which embraced such abstruse subjects as " anthropo-magneto-
electro-psychopathy, osteopathy and massage." This document
had the added attraction that it was personally signed by the
" Hierophant and Grand Llama, the High Priestess and Swami.
Sapientia Doctoribus." Angel Anna's spiritual star was clearly in
the ascendant.

ANQB1 anna: nit' woman who iaii.I'I) 141

Every feature, however, of Anna's horoscope was not propitious.
The college prospered, but everyone ml n ested in such matters was
not wholly satisfied. Rumours were apt to spread in such com-
munities as those in Cape Town, and stories that at first were
innocent enough tended to become exaggerated and take mysterious
and sinister forms. Perhaps Anna's magnetic eyes were not quite
sufficient to support the claims of occult learning : perhaps the
touches of Jackson's small soft hands were not wholly devoted to
the healing powers of remedial massage. However that may be,
the pair began to think that it was time to move again. Late in
September 1900 they had made their decision ; and on 16th October
they once more set sail for England.

On their arrival they spent some time in travelling to various
places, making contacts with others engaged in similar enterprises,
and deciding how and where to set up headquarters and begin
operations. In Brighton they soon got into touch with a strange
missionary sect led by a Mr. James William Wood, a photographer
and a man of Canadian origin, whose society had then its centre
in Carlton Terrace, Portslade, in a house rejoicing in the name of
" Arregosobah," This organization attracted a number of harmless
dupes, who masqueraded under assumed names and apparently were
quite content to serve their leader, Mr. Wood, who was known as
King Solomon. He was ably assisted by a female admirer, who
was sometimes called " Mother " and sometimes the " Universal
Empress " ; whilst others acted in minor capacities and bore the
names of " Sisters," such as, for example, a certain Mrs. Sarah
Adams, who was known as Sister Miriam or Zobeya.

There seems little doubt that Angel Anna and Frank Jackson,
alias Theodore Horos, were received with respect by Mr. Wood,
who soon realized that here was a pair who moved on higher levels
than those to which he could ever attain. For their part the
Jacksons may have seen possibilities in certain aspects of the teaching
of the Wood sect ; and the thought of being another " King
Solomon" in a very different role may at this stage have first
entered the head of the versatile Theodore, whose experiences in

[.}..» SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

New Oilcans mi^ht ho tluis transformed into something more in
keeping with the less exotic atmosphere ol murky London.

In the course of their travels the Jacksons lectured on various
esoteric subjects in the towns they visited, thus paying their
expenses ; and August 1901 found them speaking in Birkenhead
where they were kindly given hospitality by Mrs. Adams, the wife
of a master mariner and the " Sister Miriam," whom they had
met the previous April at the house of Mr. Wood in Portslade,
and who at one time had held the position of a police court
missionary.

By this time Anna had decided what the next move was to be,
and for a start they proposed to Mrs. Adams that her two children,
Daisy, aged 16, and Clifford, aged 14, should come with them to
London, where the Jacksons would see that their education was
continued, and where Daisy could complete her studies in short-
hand, typing, music and painting. Mrs. Adams readily agreed J
and towards the end of August they all arrived in London.

In the meantime the Jacksons had not been idle. During the
previous months advertisements had been appearing in the matri-
monial columns of such papers as The People and The Western Morning
News. For instance, in the former paper such an advertisement was
printed in the issue of 14th July. It read :

" Foreign gentleman, 35, educated, attractive, independent, desires
communication lady of means, view matrimony. — T. H., Box 749,
' People,' Arundel Street, Strand."

Or again the advertiser described himself as a gentleman of 30,
" handsome, independent, leftned, highly educated " and of course,
" of exemplary habits." A box number was added, and those
replying were carefully sifted before any appointments were made.

How many replies were received will never be known. It is
certain that they ran into hundreds, and it may well be that even
this is an underestimate. Such a chance was too good to be passed
over by the hordes of sex-starved, overworked and lonely English
women, to whom the lure of a wealthy, refined and highly educated
foreign gentleman proved irresistible. Let us see what kind of

ANGEL ANNA: |"HH woman who FAILED i.| {

women were chosen and what was die role thai they were called
upon to play.

Evelyn Maud (" Vera ") Croysdalc, a single woman living in
Hull, was twenty-three when she saw the advertisement in June.
Having replied and received an answer she came to London and
went to Durand Gardens, in Clapham, where the Jacksons were then
living. Anna received her affectionately, kissed her and showed her
a picture in which the Angel was portrayed reclining negligently on
the back of a live tiger in an Oriental setting. Soon after, Jackson
came in, apologizing for having missed her at the station and, after
having kissed her warmly, explained that Anna was his mother and
that Miss Croysdale was to stay with them for a few days. This
she did, only later returning to Hull for her few possessions and
then moving with the Jacksons to a new address. It was here that
Miss Croysdale became a member of the new organization formed
by Frank and Anna, of which the details might never have been
disclosed had she not been relieved of some of her money and
jewellery by her strange hosts. Her virtue might be required of
her as her own contribution to the latest cult, but the acquisition
of her possessions was not to be tolerated. There is no reason
whatever to suppose that Evelyn Croysdale was in any way a
vicious or immoral woman. She believed in the Jacksons, and her
education was not sufficient for her to understand what was going
on. She was the victim of circumstances over which she had but
little control. But when it was clear that her new friends did not
mean to return her things, then she had good cause for complaint.
So complain she did, and the ponderous machinery of the law
began to be set in motion. Little did she know that she was about
to ring up the curtain on what The Lancet afterwards described as
" one of the most remarkable " cases ever tried in the criminal
courts. The hand of justice was surely but slowly descending upon
Angel Anna.

When the Jacksons had finally decided to leave off travelling
about the country and to settle down in London, they had explored
the various openings which seemed best suited to their purpose.

144 SOMi; HUMAN ODDHIliS

London scorned likely to be as full of dupes as Cape Tow n ; and
the idea of reviving a college of some sort still attracted them.
They therefore looked about for suitable premises, and finally
found what they wanted in Gower Street, in the house where now
that highly respectable paper, The Spectator, has its offices. At that
time the place was a boarding-house kept by a Mrs. Bell Lewis,
who was herself something of a spiritual healer to whom cures of
persons addicted to alcohol were credited.

It was in July 1901 that a certain " Mr. Adams " called on her,
and engaged " an office for his mother at a pound a week. The
prospectus of the college was soon prepared ; and shortly afterwards
London's occult fraternity was interested to learn that at 99 Gower
Street, London, W.C., there was a " College of Life and Occult
Sciences." Here were to be learnt and practised " mental and
magnetic therapeutics, psychology, clairvoyance, clairaudiance (sit),
mediumship, materialization, thaumaturgic power and Divine
healing." Courses of lectures were to be delivered by an expert
called Theosopho Provost, and these varied from six to twelve
shillings a course, although on Sundays at 7 p.m. the address was
free to the public. Classes were held in which such subjects were
taught as the science of life, the human aura, dietetics and the
destiny of man. Every week, moreover, there were special classes
for " spiritual unfoldment," and the development of thaumaturgic
power, and after each lecture students were enrolled and patients
and resident novices were received. Mrs. Lewis acted as a mental
therapeutist and as registrar ; but the chief posts were reserved for
Theosopho Provost, alias Theodore Horos, and the Swami Viva
Ananda, who was also called Ellora, and who of course was Angel
Anna herself. Among the staff was Dr. Mary Adams, who had
already worked for the earlier outfit in Cape Town, and Rose
Evelyn, a magnetic healer, together with an odd person named
Henry S. Bosanquet, who acted as business manager. The pros-
pectus closed with this weighty announcement ! " Man is an
aggression (sic) of atoms, held together by vibratory law, and all
vibrations are controlled by thought. Pause and learn the law."

ANQBL ANNA: THE woman WHO FAILED '4*>

I low well Angel Anna knew the jargon beloved by the devotees of
the Higher Teaching !

When Prank and Anna realized that the complaint of Evelyn
Croysdale might prove serious, they hastily left London and took
refuge with Mrs Sarah Adams, who had befriended them when they
were lecturing in Birkenhead, and where they were both arrested on
a warrant dated 20th September. They were therefore brought
back to London ; and on 26th September 1901 the case against
them was opened at the Marylebone Police Court before Mr. Curtis
Bennett. Appearing under the names of Theodore and Laura
Horos, they were described as lecturers, of " the Limes," 109 Park
Road, Regents Park, and were charged with conspiring by " false
pretences and subtle devices " to cheat and defraud one Vera
Croysdale of her jewellery and money. Inspector John Kane, who
was in charge of the case, asked for a remand, saying that it appeared
that they were husband and wife, that their real name was Jackson,
that Mrs. Jackson had a criminal record as a convicted thief,
swindler and fortune-teller, and that Mr. Jackson was a confidence
trick swindler.

The case excited some interest on account of the extraordinary
get-up adopted by the prisoners. Angel Anna wore a large velvet
hat and a kind of dust-coat, beneath which she sported a low-cut
and loosely fitting garment resembling a surplice. She wore
cream-coloured kid gloves, and carried a large scent bottle. Horos
was dressed almost entirely in fawn-coloured clothes, including a
frock coat and a fawn bowler hat.

The second hearing took place on 3rd October. Anna asked for
a trial by jury, declaring that the evidence was false, contrary to
common sense, and wholly out of place, being prejudiced and
harmful to the interests of herself and her husband. After hearing
some more evidence a remand was again agreed to by the magistrate.

By this time some of the brighter London reporters had scented
a first-rate sensation, and readers of the Press were intrigued to hear
of a " staggering story " in preparation, extraordinary charges and
" mental science revelations."

i 4 6

SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

On resuming the licaring of the case cm ioth October those
present in court were electrified by an expansion of the charges
against the couple. In addition to the charge of obtaining money
and jewellery from Miss Croysdale, two further charges were now
brought forward. One concerned the alleged procurement for
immoral purposes of three young women, to wit, Vera Croysdale,
Olga Rowson and Laura Faulkner ; whilst the other was a charge
under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, in which it was alleged
that Daisy Adams had been raped by Horos in extremely odd and
bizarre circumstances. It was then disclosed that the watchwords
of the Order of Theocratic Unity or Purity League were poverty,
chastity and obedience, and that a diet of fruit, nuts and distilled
water was advocated, all alcohol being forbidden. More surprising
still was the allegation that Angel Anna had actually personally
assisted at the rape of Daisy, who had been taught that her sub-
mission was in the nature of a religious rite on which her salvation
depended.

Miss Croysdale was then called to give evidence. She told the
story of how she first contacted Horos, and said that when they
went to Gower Street he had taught her the details of the religion
practised there, and explained how submission and secrecy were
part of the sacred rites.

It may be convenient at this point to collect together what
information is easily accessible concerning the inner working of the
Order, and how the women collected by the Jacksons by means of
the matrimonial advertisements were prevailed upon, not only to
act as novices and priestesses of the new religion, but also as
concubines to Horos acting in the role of Theosopho Provost.

When we consider the nature of the advertisements sent out
by Horos it seems odd at first that he should have chosen as he
did from the many applicants. Anyway, he seemed a shrewd judge
of character, since not only did the various women show a singular
devotion to him and Anna, as will appear later, but it is quite
clear that they must have known that the matrimonial side of the
transaction was not genuine, and that what was being asked of

ANGEL ANNA: 11 91 woman WHO FAILED

'•17

(hem was quite diilerent from thai which they had been led to
expect. Certainly the oath which was required of them before
(hey were allowed knowledge of the mysteries was sufficiently awe-
inspiring to any simple-minded person who believed in the occult
[lowers claimed by Angel Anna and her clever husband. The
novice was required to repeat the following words : " I (here
lollovved the full name of the novice), in the presence of the Lord
of the Universe, and of this Hall of Neophytes of the Order of
the Golden Dawn in the Outer, regularly assembled, under warrant
from the G. H. Chiefs of the Second Order, do of my own free
will and accordingly and hereon most solemnly pledge myself to
keep secret this Order, its Name, the Names of its members, and
the proceedings which take place at its Meetings from all and
every person in the whole world, who is outside the pale of the
Order . . . under the penalty ... of being expelled from the
Order, as a wilfully perjured wretch, and unfit for the society of
all upright and true persons ; and, in addition, under the awful
penalty of voluntarily submitting myself to a deadly and hostile
current of will, set in motion by the Chiefs of the Order, by which
I should fall slain or paralysed without visible weapon, as if blasted
by the lightning flash. ... So help me, Lord of the Universe
and my own Higher Soul."

The oath having been duly administered, the initiation cere-
monies soon followed. Two adjoining rooms were set aside for this
purpose. In one of them a throne had been erected at one end,
and an altar backed by five lamps stood at the other. At one side
were seats for the candidates ; and in the centre was another seat
flanked by pillar lamps. Horos himself sat on the throne, whilst
opposite to him in the outer room and looking through the double
doors was the Swami, Anna, seated upon a second throne. The
novices were led through the double doors to the left of Anna,
round the lamps in front of Horos, and then out of the main room
in front of Anna. Both Horos and his wife were arrayed in fantastic
robes ; and on the altar was a red cross, a vessel for mixing wine
and water, occult signs and lamps. The candidates, whilst passing

[48 SOMI- HUMAN OlMMTII-S

round the main room, were blindfolded and were led by a rope
passed round their bodies. Thrice had they to walk round the
room : purificatory acts were undertaken, and the oath repeated.
When the blindfold was removed each novice found herself standing
with a sword poised above her head. Benediction was then pro-
nounced and the initiation was over.

Now and then still more secret ceremonies were carried out in
which the phallic element predominated, and in which Horos
apparently made use of those artificial aids which are credited to
the individuals personifying the devil in the Witches' Sabbaths of
bygone times.

On nth October the hearing of the case was resumed at the
police court. Anna, arrayed this time in a light blue robe with
bishop's sleeves of baggy white lawn, and wearing in addition a
black-hooded cape with fringed black bands, announced that she
was conducting the defence, but she had to be reminded that this
might be so as regarding herself but not as regarding her partner.
It was revealed that Daisy Adams had signed the oath and that
she had been told that Horos was Christ Himself who had again
come down from Heaven, and that by submitting herself to him
she would " bring foith the birth of the Motherhood of God."
In telling her story, which created a sensation, she said that she
had unwillingly submitted, with Anna in the same room actively
assisting at the ceremony.

The next hearing furnished a series of fresh thrills for the
crowded court, and provided an interesting commentary upon the
psychology of the women serving at the amazing altars of Gower
Street. It appeared from evidence given on a previous occasion
that Miss Croysdale had taken a short holiday in Somerset during
her stay with the Jacksons, and whilst there had addressed an
affectionate letter to Angel Anna, whom she called her " own
dearest Swami," and ended by signing herself " Your loving
daughter." In explanation of this she said that she had gone away
in order to release herself from the power that the Jacksons had
obtained over her, a theory which, on the face of it, did not sound

ani.h. ANNA: fHB woman who FAILED

149

very convincing. She w.is thereupon submitted lo a series ot
searching questions from Anna, who asked her to explain by what
marvellous thoughts she was able to absent herself from her
hypnotic keepers. In reply Vera said that by absenting herself she
hoped to release herself from the power exercised over her, but
when asked to explain hypnotic suggestion she gave no reply,
fvloreover, she was also unable to define either hypnotism or " the
power," to which the Angel tartly replied, " Perhaps the learned
Apostle Matthew for the prosecution can," a sally which Mr.
Charles Mathews smilingly acknowledged.

On 16th October the case was enlivened by the recall of Miss
Olga Rowson, who had joined the society through one of the
matrimonial advertisements that she had seen in July. She was
twenty-six years of age, unmarried and in domestic service in
Bayswater. She met Horos by arrangement, and they then went
out to tea, and during the meal Horos flattered her and attempted
to fondle her. Later they went to Durand Gardens, where she no
longei attempted to resist, feeling, as she told the court, " quite
helpless." This circumstance, however, did not deter her from
joining the group in Gower Street, where Horos, Swami and herself
all slept in one bed with results which, it was stated, could not be
described in print.

In spite of these incidents, Miss Rowson did not appear to be
in any way disgusted or put off by the life at the headquarters of
the Order of the Golden Dawn in the Outer. It is true that, for
a short time, she returned to her situation in Bayswater, but was
soon back, and her feelings for both Horos and Swami were well
exemplified in her letters. Calling Horos " dearest Theo " and
Anna " dearest Mother," she thanked them for all the kindness
shown to her. " It seems to have put quite a new life into me,"
she added, " and I can honestly say that I never felt so happy and
comfortable in my life as I did during the past week. Give my
kindest tegards to all, and accept my love and kisses, and believe
me to remain ever your affectionate daughter, Olga." In another
letter to Horos she described herself as his " ever loving and devoted

15(1 SOMIi HUMAN ODDITIES

Olga " ; and Anna can scarcely be blamed when the letter was
read out in court for announcing dramatically, " A remarkable
letter from a seduced woman !

It was through the evidence of Olga Rowson that light is thrown
on how Anna and her partner got money out of the women who
joined them. Olga had, apparently, a little hard-earned cash which
she had saved, and lent Anna sixty pounds of it, whilst Horos
accompanied her to the Post Office to withdraw another fifty from
her account. Explaining these transactions, she declared that she
believed that she was engaged to Horos, and that was the reason
why she handed over her money and jewellery to him.

At the end of the day's hearing a hostile demonstration took
place inside the court, and Horos, losing control of himself, shouted
out, " Just keep quiet, you reptiles." The prisoners were then
hastily removed, and the crowd scattered to talk over the results
of the day's hearings.

At the next sitting of the court Daisy Pollex Adams, sixteen
years old in March 1901, gave evidence in person. She was described
as a dark little thing, bright and attractive, with her hair let down
her back in thick curls, and wearing a dark blue jacket with polished
buttons and a bright red Tarn o' Shanter. She said that she
arrived at Gower Street with her brother Clifford on 22nd August,
and understood from what Horos told her that he was the Son of
God. Daisy then related what had occurred, and said that she
was initiated in the presence of Vera and others, taking part in the
sacred mysteries on 27th August and remaining until 30th August.
Finally she told the other women what had happened to her when
alone with Horos and Anna.

In the discussion which followed these incredible revelations a
letter from Daisy to Horos was produced, in which she used the
same endearing terms as Olga Rowson had done. " I have been
very sad at heart to think that I have wronged you so," she wrote ;
" I love you better than myself and anybody in the world."
Questioned as to why she should thus write to a man who had
served her so ill, she declared that at that time she " believed he

ANGEL anna : nil; woman who eaii.ed

was a good man. Too late, I ),usv, too late, interjected Anna
in her most dramatic manner.

It was at this hearing that an amusing incident occurred. The
Angel was at the top of her form, and during the day she noticed
that Mr. Charles Mathews was now and then referring to her
diary. She claimed that this was not in order, and the magistrate
had to admit that she was right. " Then don't repeat it," Anna
sharply retorted. " Behave yourself," replied the magistrate in his
turn.

The following day Miss Laura Faulkner was called. Her father
was a sanitary engineer, who was, she thought, much too strict with
her, for she was then nineteen years of age. She had seen the
advertisement in The People and had replied to it, and when in
London she had met Horos, who flatteied her, saying that her
complexion was like strawberries and cream. It appeared that,
from later accounts, she went to the theatre with Horos, who told
her that he was the centre of the Divine Sphere, and that legal
marriage was contrary to the rules of his Order. She submitted to
him, however, and confessed to the court that his hands produced
in her a " kind of dizzy, sleepy effect." It was only later that
both Horos and Anna began to question her about her money and
the social position of her parents.

The case had now reached a stage at which sensation followed
sensation so rapidly that special arrangements had to be made to
control the proceedings. On account of the nature and details of
the charges, it was decided to exclude women altogether from the
court ; and on 8th November the room was packed to suffocation,
people sitting on the counsel's box, the solicitors' seats and even
on the steps of the witness-box.

Among other witnesses was Dr. Samuel Lloyd, the police
divisional surgeon to the Tottenham Court Road police station.
He gave evidence on the subject of Daisy Adams ; and when he
had finished, Angel Anna fastened her glittering eyes upon him.
There then followed one of the most remarkable exhibitions ever
seen in a police court. The court was stilled, and the people

IJ2 SOMH HUMAN ODDITIES

watched as il fascinated by the scene. Question after question
Anna fired at the doctor. The most minute anatomical and medical
details were discussed, analysed and dissected. Even Dr. Lloyd
himself was surprised at the wealth of knowledge displayed by this
extraordinary woman, who declared that she never forgot anything,
not even her clinical education, " although it was years ago." To
her, Dr. Lloyd's theory was " pathologically so empirical and
sweeping " that it deserved little credit. Finally she was silent,
and amid a buzz of excited whispering the court closed.

It was on 24th November that the day arrived when Horos and
Swami were to give evidence in person. Although the public had
expected a major sensation it was not nearly so interesting as had
been expected. Horos said that his real name was Frank Dutton
Jackson, and that " it had been his privilege since he was ten years
of age to be the adopted son of this most noble lady." They were
married, he said, three years ago, and knowing that he was incapable
of any marital duties " she, with saintly principle and heroic
martyrdom " had consigned herself " a living immolation on
the sacred altar of celibacy and chastity." As for himself
he never claimed any divine powers or professed to be a divine
personality.

Anna herself then gave evidence. She denied the story that she
had ever served any sentence as a convicted thief, in which she was
clearly referring to the report that she had once been an inmate of
the Joliet State Penitentiary, 111., in 1893, which Inspector Kane
had mentioned when presenting photographs taken at the prison.
She added that she had founded the Koreshan Unity in 1866, and
gave further details of its teaching. Among other exhibits which
were produced in court were some books on mesmerism, a letter
to the pair from Mr. W. T. Stead, the famous spiritualist, in
which the hope was expressed that " your civic Theosophic centre
may be a pharos from which light may stream over a darkened
continent," and some " candles " of odd appearance which might
have been employed in certain of the phallic ceremonies at Gower
Street. On account of the claim by Horos that the charges against

»

ANGEI. anna : tiii; woman who i aii.i;i> i*>1

him were impossible by reason of his physical condition, it was
agreed that a medical examination should be made by Dr. James
Scott of Holloway Prison. The hearing was then adjourned.

When the case was resumed Dr. Scott was called to give
evidence. He asserted that both he and the eminent London
surgeon, Mr. Christopher Heath, had examined the male prisoner,
and in their view there was nothing to indicate any physical
incapacity, although it does not appear that they mentioned the
possibility of impotence due to psychological causes. It was true,
the doctor said, that the prisoner was not entirely normal, and had
had an operation for hernia, but he was in no way incapable of
committing the offences laid at his charge. After Dr. Mary Evelyn
Adams, who had been on the staff of the College both at Cape
Town and in London, had given her evidence the prisoners were
both committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court.

The proceedings opened on 18th December before Mr. Justice
Bigham, the Solicitor-General and others acting for the prosecution,
and the prisoners, both of whom pleaded " Not Guilty," con-
ducting their own defence. The crowds were so enormous that
tickets for admission were issued only by the order of the
Under-Sheriff, but even then it was not easy to control them.

Anna appeared in an amazing mauve gown wrapped round her
like a toga. She surveyed the court as though from a box in a
theatre, and both her appearance, bold demeanour and provocative
glances did little to recommend her in the eyes of the jury. Daisy
Adams again gave her evidence, and when cross-examined by Horos
said that the reason why she did not leave was because she had no
money to pay her fare home.

The next day, when Anna made her appearance in court in a
new gown, the proceedings were enlivened by a duel between the
Angel and the Solicitor-General, later Sir Edward Carson. Daisy
had been recalled, and was giving evidence relating to the assault in
which she maintained that Anna held one of her hands whilst she
tried to resist with the other. During her cross-examination by
Anna, the Solicitor- General rose in order to clarify a point, where-

154 SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

upon she sharply rebuked him, telling him to sit down as she was
conducting the defence.

On 20th December the court was packed. So intense was the
interest in the case that the Home Secretary, the Rt. Hon. C. T.
Ritchie, was himself present, and the police had some difficulty in
controlling the crowds. Angel Anna appeared wearing a very
voluminous robe of pure white satin, cut low round the neck and
with flowing sleeves lined in heliotrope. Over her shoulders she
wore a dazzling white scarf, and as she slowly raised her huge bulk
into the dock she made a profound impression.

Dr. James Scott, assisted by Mr. Christopher Heath, then again
gave evidence regarding Jackson's physical condition, and Dr.
Herbert Dixon on that of Daisy Adams, and once again the public
listened to an amazing display of pathological knowledge in its
forensic application on the part of the prisoners. Having com-
pleted her cross-examination, Anna mockingly remarked, " I have
finished, most Royal Academician ; you may go ! "

Jackson then entered the box to give evidence on his own
behalf. He said that he owned some 7280 acres in the United
States where he hoped to found a colony called Theocratic Unity,
which was to be based upon the principles of Christ's life. He
complained that the accusations levelled against him were the very
things that their teachings condemned, and that the charges were
due to a deep-laid conspiracy on the part of their enemies. When
asked about the matrimonial advertisements he began to hedge
and evade the issue under the pretence of protecting his friends,
and when he stepped down from the box his case was in no way
strengthened by his method of conducting it.

Anna then slowly made her way to the box to give her evidence.
After a short survey of her life she declared that, although it was
true that she possessed clairvoyant and healing powers, she was not
a medium and never professed to be one. Finally she addressed to
the jury a long appeal, couched in flowery language and full of
lofty sentiments and persuasive nuances. " And now, gentlemen,"
she concluded, " I ask you now as we approach the anniversary of

ANGBL ANNA : rHli WOMAN WHO IAIUU)

the day on which we celebrate the birth of our Saviour, I ask you
in the name of (he Lord Christ, to use His greatest gift to man,
the human reason, and to remember we do not ask for mercy or
the benefit of your doubt, but for justice."

When she had finished the members of the jury retired to
consider their verdict, after having heard the summing up by Mr.
Justice Bigham. They were soon back after an absence of less than
ten minutes. The verdict was " Guilty." When asked if they
had anything to say regarding the decision neither Anna nor Frank
made any reply.

Sentence was then pronounced, and the court was stilled as
Mr. Justice Bigham was speaking. Addressing Jackson he sentenced
him to fifteen years penal servitude so that he would no longer
" be able to practise his filthy acts upon the public." As to Anna,
the judge said that he found it difficult to understand how she was
able to associate herself with the acts of her partner, but that he
had little doubt that she did do so. As she was older than her
husband he would take that into consideration, but she would have
to go to penal servitude for seven years.

Having heard the sentences the prisoners were quickly removed.
Both were deadly pale, and Jackson allowed himself to be led from
the dock without saying anything or making any attempt at
remonstrance. Angel Anna murmured " Thank you, my Lord," as
she swerved into the arms of the wardresses who led her down the
steps, a bitter and sarcastic smile still playing about her lips. That
night she spent, so it was said, in Holloway, before being taken
later to the Female Convict Prison at Aylesbury. The drama was
over. Another chapter had closed in Anna's life.

It was on Saturday morning, 11th August 1906, that Anna left
Aylesbury. She had, it seems, obtained maximum remission of
her sentence through her good behaviour, and few people who saw
her leave would have guessed her previous history. Her hair was
snow white, and she was dressed becomingly in a loose-fitting
black costume, a long black cloak with purple satin scarf, and a
neat black and purple bonnet. Her baggage was merely one box

SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

and ,i canvas bundle. Alter having paid a visit to Scotland Yard,
she went in a cab to a small hotel in Bloumsbury. Attempts to
interview her failed. All that reporters could learn from those in
a position to know was that Anna had, in many respects, become
a reformed woman. The same year she sailed for the United States
and disappeared.

Although the case was one of great interest from the point of
view of the psychologist and the forensic physician it excited but
little discussion in the medical and legal Press. The nature of the
acts committed were such that The Lancet found the details " too
revolting to relate " ; and it is clear that those not present at the
various hearings had little idea from the printed reports in what
precisely the charges consisted, and how the willingness of Jackson
to be medically examined suggested that neither he nor his wife
were fully aware of the legal implications of their conduct as laid
down in the Offences against the Person Act, 1861. In the case
of Anna, the writer in The Lancet stated that her claim to indulgence
was visionary, since her past history was exceptional " in the variety
and malignity of her crimes." As regards Mr. Justice Bigham's
alleged leniency towards her, the journal declared that the reason
may have been that he thought her mental condition was " hovering
over the confines of sanity and lunacy," an opinion probably sug-
gested by the fact that in 1870 she had been under observation in
a mental institution in New York. Whatever may have been the
state of her mind, the truth underlying the whole affair will probably
never be known. Up to the time that she had met Jackson, Anna
had, it appears, lived by her wits, duping numbers of people
through her pretensions to supernormal powers, but never perhaps
indulging in more serious forms of criminal activity. It is true
that some suspicions seem to have been aroused as to the reason for
the death of Mr. Loewenherz, and similarly the deaths of Messant
and McGowan a year after their marriages to her may have been
purely coincidental. Her attachment to Jackson seems to have been
of a different order, although none the less strange for all that. It
is, perhaps, more explicable from his point of view. Of slim build,

ANGEL ANNA : TIM WOMAN wiln FAILED

weak nature and abnormal habits, |ackson was clearly attracted by
this enormous woman, not so much in all probability from any
physical attraction that she might have possessed, but rather from
what he took to be her strength of character, her tenacity, cunning,
ruthlessness and indomitable spirit. On the other hand, it is
possible that Anna saw in him a partner for her series of swindles
and as one who possessed just those qualities that she herself lacked.
She could hardly be expected to draw to her Colleges of Occult
Science those ignorant, credulous and suggestible women who
crowd the parlours of fortune-tellers, palmists and guides to the
Higher Life. For this purpose Horos was invaluable, with his
winning ways and his soft hands. After all, when all was said and
done, the women remained in Gower Street after it must have
been perfectly obvious that the matrimonial advertisements were
nothing more than a blind. It has been urged that they were so
frightened by the oaths of secrecy that they had taken and by the
terrible penalties to be exacted should they fail that, once enmeshed,
they found it impossible to escape. It seems to me, however, that
this point of view, although having some degree of truth, especially
as regards Daisy Adams, would be difficult to maintain in its
entirety in view of the letters written to Swami and Horos when the
women were out of the house. It seems more likely that they
were so fascinated by the unusual novelty and strangeness of their
surroundings, as compared with their previous drab existence, that
they accepted the requirements of Theocratic Unity as an excuse
with which partly to rationalize their own action.

In discussing the reasons for Angel Anna's failure to make good
use of the faculties with which Nature had bestowed her, it is
hardly possible not to compare her failure with the outstanding
successes of Victoria (Claflin) Woodhull, with whom she came into
conflict in 1870. Both seemed to start their early lives in circum-
stances so similar that the fact that the one ended as a convicted
criminal and the other a wealthy, respected and honoured member
of society, can hardly fail to be of interest to the student of heredity
and abnormal psychology. It is true that Mrs. Woodhull had

i58

somi; human odditii-s

powerful patrons like Commodore Vanderbilt and the help of an
equally remarkable sister, Tennessee, who later became Lady
Francis Cook. Moreover, her interests were far wider than those
of Anna, and her intellectual powers were better co-ordinated. The
first woman to be nominated candidate to the Presidency of the
United States, Mrs. Victoria Woodhull was a leading feminist
before she was forty : and her courage and enterprise were as
striking to her contemporaries as they must be to people to-day.
She moved from success to success. It was not long after she
arrived in England from the United States at the time of the death
of Vanderbilt that she married the wealthy banker, John Biddulph
Martin, and to the end of her life she maintained her originality,
her vivacity and her capacity for enjoyment. Edward VII, when
Prince of Wales, was charmed by her, and his judgment where
women were concerned was not lightly to be put aside. The Earl
of Coventry found her delightful ; and when the famous British
Museum libel case came off in 1894 she had an ideal setting in
which she could show off her power of repartee, skill and evasion
when in difficulties. When she died in 1927 she left over £180,000 ;
and when her daughter followed her in 1940 the fortune had risen
to a net personalty of nearly £326,000. Her success was as sure
and solid as Anna's failure was complete and ruinous. Was it
merely the intervention of Vanderbilt that caused Victoria and
Tennessee to abandon their tours as spirit mediums, and the latter
to discard her very dubious role as a healer of cancer and a sales-
woman of a miraculous " magnetio life elixir" (one teaspoonful
three times a day) ? In other words, would the two Claflin sisters
have succeeded to the extent that they did had the old Commodore
not installed them in New York and made them the city's
bewitching brokers ? And if Victoria had taken Anna into the
office as she asked, might not her later history have been very
different ? Or to pursue our speculations further : is it possible
that Anna was lost even before she collided with Victoria Woodhull ?
Had she some queer criminal kink which drove her inexorably and
relentlessly towards the dock and penal servitude ? Again, what

ANQEL ANNA! rHH WOMAN WHO FAILED iy>

happened to her when .she came oul ol the prison at Aylesbury?
Where did she go, when she sailed for America in 190(1, and did
she ever rejoin Frank Dutton Jackson and start some fresh adventure
under new aliases ? Or was she at last convinced that society
could not always be successfully preyed upon and its more innocent
members bamboozled and fooled ? In short, did her quiet and
uneventful life in prison finally convince her that she, the Great
Swami, the Princess Editha Loleta, the Wisest of Doctors, was just
plain Anna, the woman who failed ?

APPENDIX

THIS appendix is designed for the purpose of assisting those of
my readers who may wish to acquaint themselves more fully with
the original and other sources from which the facts outlined in the
preceding pages are mainly derived.

Each of the principal characters in the six chapters has been
chosen in order to illustrate some particularly troublesome and
difficult problem, which has either been neglected by scientific
men, or has been studied in such slight measure that our know-
ledge concerning it is meagre, crude and somewhat sketchy.

Thus, if he wish, the reader may extend his acquaintance with
this gallery of human oddities, and perhaps be prevailed upon to
consider them rather as examples illustrating some fascinating
problems than merely as strange people, the account of whose
doings served to pass away an idle hour.

Before listing the principal and secondary sources in each case,
I have tried to point out how the story of the characters portrayed
can be used as a starting-point from which to develop a technical
discussion upon the problems involved. Thus the life of St.
Joseph of Copertino not only brings up the whole question of
miracles in its broadest sense, but also can be used to initiate debate
upon the relation between belief in the miraculous and the cultural
pattern of the people among whom the belief exists. Moreover, the
case is of interest inasmuch as it offers a comparison between
physical phenomena as reported among the saints, and those alleged
to occur in the presence of spiritualistic mediums, whilst at the
same time the whole question of the relation between psychic
manifestations and trance, rapture and hallucination is brought
into view.

Similarly, the story of the Deacon of Paris brings before the
medical reader the problem of faith-healing, suggestion, and the
loosening of conscious control of bodily movements. It is also an
interesting study in the psychology of testimony, and in the effect
of the clash between powerful rival interests on the accumulation
of that testimony.

It is hoped, therefore, that these portraits may excite an in-
creased interest among medical men, psychiatrists, sociologists

no

AI'PI'NDIX !<>l

andpsycluc.il researchers, anil thus (iirthcr investigation into these
obscure phenomena, the elucidation ol which will do much to
open up some of the darker corners ot human activity, and thus
promote a better understanding of how man can control his own
destiny.

CHAPTER ONE

ST. JOSEPH OF COPERTINO : THE FRIAR
WHO FLEW

The life of St. Joseph of Copertino is not merely the story of a
thaumaturgic monk : it is a story which compels the thoughtful
reader to consider at least half a dozen problems which have hardlv
begun to be solved, and which are of the most extreme complexity
and difficulty. For instance, among the questions which must arise
in the mind of the student the following are, perhaps, the most
insistent. Have human beings at any time and in any place risen
into the air and remained suspended as if in defiance of the laws
of gravity ? If so, was St. Joseph of Copertino one of them ? If
not, how are we to account for the innumerable stories of such
phenomena, reported as they have been at all times and from all
parts of the world, and moreover attested not only by the ignorant
and the lowly but also by the learned and the lordly ? Again,
how is it that the reports of these remarkable happenings seem
nowadays to be fewer and fewer, not only as regards their occurrence
in the presence of mediums, but also equally in the case of the
holy men and women of various religions ? Is it because the
progress of science renders the exposure of such claims easier to
carry out and so makes belief in them more difficult, or is it because
this very progress has so transformed our ways of life and thought
that, in some subtle manner, the production of such phenomena is
thereby inhibited ?

Now, if we assume that the stories of St. Joseph's levitations
and aerial flights are not based even upon a modicum of fact, then
we are compelled, I think, to suppose that the accounts of these
events, both with him and with many others, are due to those
sources of error common in such cases as, for example, exaggeration,
malobservation, lying and downright fraud. For my own part I
do not find it easy to believe that the Cardinals, Bishops, Superiors,
monastic physicians and lay visitors were all lying or engaged in a
system of deceit for the apparent purpose of bolstering up the
reputation of a fraudulent friar or the Order to which he was
attached. Indeed, it appears from the records that on more than

162

Al'IM'.NDIX

one occasion Joseph was not accepted at the value ol In:, less
experienced companions, but was submitted to rigorous examination
by the superior authorities. On the other hand, I can imagine that
these more educated witnesses were, perhaps, mistaken as to what
they thought they saw, and later exaggerated the incidents to
proportions which tended to make them bear but slight resemblance
to what originally had happened. Moreover, there is no doubt that
even the highest authorities in the Roman Catholic Church have
been in the past, and in many cases apparently still are, committed
to beliefs in events which, in my view at least, clearly never could
have happened in the way described. Among these the wholly
incredible flights of the Holy House at Nazareth to Loreto in Italy
are historically important, although it is true that, since the
appearance of U. Chevalier's Notre-Dame it Lorette (Paris, 1906),
many Catholic scholars have become chary of openly expressing
their belief in the reality of these incidents.

There can really be no doubt, I think, that hundreds of miracles
ascribed to the Saints could never have taken place in the way
described. For example, who could believe that St. Dunstan,
Abbot of Glastonbury (925-988) changed the position of a church
by pushing it ; that St. James of Tarentaise (1429) lengthened a
gutter by throwing holy water upon it ; or that a woman's hair,
having been cut off by an irate spouse, was suddenly and miraculously
restored through the intercession of that great thaumaturge, St.
Anthony of Padua (1195-1221) ? Moreover, who in these days
could credit the immense catalogue of miracles attributed to St.
Francis of Paula (1416-1508) or to St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419),
who actually was said to have received a paper from Heaven signed
by the Holy Trinity ?

Such tales abound in the life histories of religious persons, and
they are not lacking in the case of St. Joseph of Copertino. The
story of his clothes remaining dry during a storm can easily be
paralleled by similar stories told of other saints like St. Dominic
Guzman (1170-1221) ; and again the tale of the candle which,
although burning, did not diminish in size, is reminiscent of
legends of the same kind which are associated with the names of
St. Eucher of Orleans in the eighth century, St. Hermann of
Cologne in the thirteenth and St. Grande in the sixteenth.

There is no need, however, to go back to the thirteenth or
even to the sixteenth century to discover records of marvels the
investigation of which was quite easy if the Roman Catholic

164

somi; HUMAN C ) I > I > I I 1 1 : s

authorities had shown any desire to make the necessary inquiries.
For example, take the remarkable phenomena which, in 1866 to
1869, were said to occur round the Holy Bambino of Bari. This
was a white waxen image of the Infant Jesus, and measured about a
foot in length. It was kept in the rooms of the pious sisters, Maria
and Martha Parlavecchia, who lived on the first floor of a small
house in Bari in Italy. One of the rooms had been transformed
into a small oratory to which pilgrims used to come to kneel near
the image and observe the phenomena, which seem to have gone
on the whole time. The Abbe" Bruni was commissioned by Arch-
bishop Francesco Pedicini of Bari to examine the claims which
were being made on behalf of the Bambino, and an account of his
findings was translated in the Rosier de Marie in 1871.

It appears that in 1866 the image began to perspire and even
to sweat blood. Great drops were seen on the surface of the wax,
and when one drop was removed another soon began to form in the
same place. In 1868 this sweat was so abundant that the linen on
which the image was laid was soaked with it, and big gobs of
blood rose from the body of the image. Indeed, so much sweat
oozed forth that it was bottled and, like the blood of St. Januarius,
the amount increased in the phials till it filled them. In colour
it was like pale straw and sometimes smelt vaguely of cinnamon.

The next thing that happened was that the Holy Bambino
began to move by itself. Its eyes turned, and even when it was
sealed beneath its glass cover, it was found to alter its position as
it lay in its cradle. It began to sit up and move its fingers in order
to grasp a little cross and a miniature flag, which had apparently
materialized inside the case and which were both covered with
blood.

Pieces of linen and paper placed beneath the image then began
to be mysteriously impressed with the emblems of the Passion.
Archdeacon Petruzelli sent another little image in a sealed case to
keep company with the Holy Bambino. It was not long before it
also showed the stigmata and began to swear. The phenomena
were infectious. But the Archbishop was not satisfied. In 1867
he sent a piece of linen within a double envelope and carefully
sealed in a number of places. This was put into the cradle beneath
the image, and next day it was found wet as if parts of it had been
dipped in a solution of blood and water. What was even more
mysterious was that the linen showed damp stains beneath those
parts of the paper which were dry, whereas those parts of the

APPENDIX

envelopes which were wti had had in> effect whatever on the piece

of linen lying just beneath (hem. On the linen itself, however,
there was impressed a picture of two serpents fighting one another,
although a sword was depicted as transfixing them both.

It is clear from the accounts of this case that the authorities
made no serious attempt whatever to investigate the affair. In
spite of bottles of " sweat " being collected, it does not seem that
any analysis was made ; and in this case there was far less excuse
than in that of the blood of St. Januarius where only a very small
portion of the substance exists sealed up in an ampolla where it
has remained for perhaps over two hundred years. It would seem
that as long as the Holy Bambino collected pilgrims, strengthened
the faith of the weak and demonstrated the glory of God nothing
more was needed.

It may, therefore, be asked whether it be legitimate to lump all
these fanciful stories into one mass and conclude that they belong
to the realm of fiction and have no relation to reality. On the
other hand, it might be urged that some abnormal manifestations
did actually occur on certain occasions, and that these have acted
as points round which other tales crystallized, as it were, until the
genuine nucleus was hidden by the mass of fanciful and fraudulent
accretions.

Whatever may be the truth of the matter it is abundantly
clear that our knowledge of these things is far from adequate since
we are still in doubt as to whether such a phenomenon as the
levitation of the human body ever occurs without some form of
artificial aid. Even if it could be shown that all such reports have
no valid basis, then the fact of their wide dissemination in all
parts of the world, both in ancient and modern times, would serve
as an interesting foundation for a study of the psychology of legend
and of human credulity in general.

Before passing on to mention the sources from which our
knowledge of St. Joseph is derived, I ought, perhaps, to draw the
reader's attention to another case of alleged aerial flight of an even
more remarkable kind than that credited to the flying friar.
Moreover, there are certain elements in this case which may suggest
to some how these stories are built up and belief in them fostered
and encouraged. I refer to the life of Marie Baourdie, whose
biography by the Rev. D. Buzy was published in English in 1926.
In this volume the ecstasies of this lady are described, and also the
alleged power that she possessed of flying through the air and

[66

soMi- human onnnir.s

alighting upon the tree tops in the convent garden. On several
occasions she was found perched on the summit of a high lime tree,
these ecstatic ascensions being noted as occurring some eight times
in 1873 and 1874.

Now, from the meagre accounts preserved it would seem that
Marie was never actually seen in the act of flying to the top of the
trees or of flying down from them. The nearest approach to such a
flight would seem to be the account of a lay sister, who declared
that Marie got hold of a small branch " that a little bird would
have bent "and from that moment" she was raised aloft." Moreover,
when descending, she made use of the various branches, finally
stepping on to a plank which had been apparently purposely placed
for her convenience. As a matter of fact, one of the witnesses in
the Process was quite candid in her account of what occurred on
one occasion. When in the garden, Sister Marie suddenly told her
to turn round, which she obediently did, only to find on again
turning that her companion was already sitting on a small branch
of a lime tree and singing like a bird.

These accounts compel us, I think, to suspect that Sister Marie
was never levitated at all in the true sense of the term, but was
merely remarkably active and agile in climbing trees, an activity
which was probably accentuated and assisted by the dissociated
state in which she passed many hours of her life. Indeed, on one
occasion it is reported that she came out of her ecstasy when still
up the tree, and only came down with great difficulty, like St.
Joseph, when a ladder had to be fetched by the worthy Fr. Antonio.
How different are these accounts from that recorded of the famous
flying witch of Navarre, who, after sliding half-way down a tower
like a lizard, flew into the air in the sight of all (see P. de Sandoval,
Hist, de la vida y bechos del Emptrador Carlos V (Amberes, 1681), Lib.
XVI, 15, Vol. I, 622). With this tale may be compared the story
of the astonishing flight of the Franciscan monk, Juan de J£sus,
of the Province of San Diego in the Canary Islands, an incident
which seems to have escaped the notice of the learned Professor
Olivier Leroy. It is described in chapter xviii. of A. Abreu's Vida
del Ven. Siervo de Deo N. Juan de Jesus (Madrid, 1701), and as the
author was a teacher in the Franciscan house of San Miguel de las
Victorias in La Laguna, and an official of the Inquisition, he ought
to have access to the original documents.

The principal and most authoritative sources for the life and
works of St. Joseph of Copertino are the official Processes which

AI'l'INUIX

«-7

deal with his beatification and canonization, and winch were issued
from 1751 to 1766 by the Congregation ol Kites. Some ol tin-
most important of these documents are : Ntritonm. HeatiJicationis et
canonizationis Josephi a Cupertino Ord. Min. Nova positio super dubio an,
et de quibus miraculis consul in casu, et ad effeetum, de. quo agitur ?
(Romae, 1751) ; Summarium additionale. Novae responsiones super eodem
dubio, etc. (Romae, 1751) ; Positio super dubio an, et de quibus miraculis
constet in casu . . . (Romae, 1764) ; Positio novissina super dubio an,
et de quibus miraculis constet in casu, et ad effeetum, de quo agitur ?
(Romae, 1766). Copies are very rare, but a set stands at nrs. 4771
to 4840 in the great collection (H. 359) of Processes in the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. With these may be compared the
Relatione della solenne Canoriizazionc del Beati G. Canzio . . . C. da
Copertino . . . (Romae, 1767), and J. A. Mariotti's Acta canoniza-
tionis sanctorum . . . Josephi a Cupertino (Romae, 1769)' especially
pp. 31-41, 132-141, 171-173, 253-269, 285-289, 395-4°4> etc -

One of the most easily accessible sources is the compilation in
the great Acta Sanctorum (see Sept., Vol. V, Antverpiae, 1755,
992-1060, or other ed.), although there are also biographies by
individuals, some of whom in later years have drawn copiously from
the Processes. R. Nuti published his Vita del servo di Dio P.
Giuseppe da Copertino in Palermo in 1678, other editions in German
and Latin being issued in Vienna in 1682, and in Brunn in 1695.
Another important biography is that by Angelo Pastrovicchi, namely,
Compendia della vita . . . del B. Giuseppe di Copertino (Romae, 1753),
of which another edition was published in Osimo in 1804, and an
abridged French translation by Denis in Paris in 1820. The Latin
version is included in the Acta Sanctorum, and a German version, the
Leben des beiligen J. von Copertino, was issued in Augsburg in 1843,
being translated by M. Sintzel, the earliest German translation
being apparently published in Cologne in 1753, °f which a second
edition with some changes appeared in 1768. An adaptation in
English of Pastrovicchi's book was issued in 1918 in St. Louis,
U.S.A., and edited by the Rev. F. S. Laing, but the material is
somewhat abridged and therefore should be used with caution.

One of the best and most easily discoverable lives is that by
Dominico Bernino, from whom I have largely drawn. It is fully
documented by reference to the Processes, and various editions are
known, being first published in Rome in 1722, and later in Venice
in 1724, 1752 and 1768. In 1753 Agelli made an abridgment of
Bernino's book under the title of Vita del Beati Giuseppe di Copertino,

somi;

human ODDITIES

fur which sec A.S., Sept., V, 1051 11., and cf. G. Mazzuchelli,
Cli scrittori d'ltalia (Brescia, 1753, etc.), II, Pt. 2, p. 1000.

^ Bernino's book was entitled Vita del padre Fr. Giuseppe da Copertino
de' Minori Convcntuali, and it was not until 1856 that an abridged
French translation (Vie de Saint Joseph de Cupertin) was published,
another appearing in 1899. A paraphrase and short abstract of the
volume will be found in English in Fr. Leon de Clary's Lives of the
Saints and Blessed of the three Orders of Saint Francis (Taunton, 1886),
III, pp. 205-221, and a rather similar French abstract in P. Guerin's
Lcs Petits Bollandistes, Vies des Saints (Pans, 1882), XI, pp. 219-236 ;
whilst G. F. Daumer in his Christina Mirabilis . . . (Paderborn,
1864) mentions the Saint (p. 93), but without adding anything of
importance. In 1851, G. I. Montanari published his Vita c Miracoli
di San Giuseppe da Copertino in Fermo ; and in 1898, F. Gattari
issued his Vita di S. Giuseppe da Copertino in Osimo ; whilst the
latest biography is, if I mistake not, that by E. M. Franciosi
(Vita di S. Giuseppe da Copertino), which was reviewed in the Analecta
Boll, 1927, XLV, p. 469, and which was published in Recanati in
1925. Finally, there are two biographies which have, I think, not
yet been printed, namely, those by Vmcenzo da Mercatello and
Bernardo di Osimo.

Apart from special biographies of the Saint, some information,
which has been derived mainly from them, can be obtained from
various collections, such as Alban Butler's The Lives of the Fathers,
Martyrs, and other principal Saints (London, 1814), Sept. 18, IX, pp.
2 43" 2 47)and S. Baring-Gould's The Lives of the Saints (London, 1898),
Sept., X, pp. 292-300, where an article containing some surprises
will be found. Mr. Baring-Gould apparently regards the levitations
as merely a series of high leaps, and declares that similar extra-
ordinary leaps and dances are not infrequent at Protestant and
Dissenting Revivals. Moreover, he says that he has seen these
levitations at fairs and that they are " contrived by means of
looking-glasses." A view taken from rather the opposite standpoint,
and by my friend the late Father Herbert Thurston, S.J., will be
found in the 1926-38 edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints (Sept., IX,
pp. 239 ff.), with which may be compared the article in The Month
for May 1919, pp. 321 ff. Further information will be found in
the Encyclopedic Tbeologique (Diet. Hagiographique, LI) and published in
Paris in 1830 ; G. Moroni, Di^ionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica
(Venezia, 1840-61), Vol. 31 (1845), pp. 210-211 ; J. P. Migne,
Dictionnaire de Mystique chretienne fParis, 1858), 1537, etc. ; J. E.

APPHNDIX

Stadler and F. J. I Ieini, Vollstiindiges Heilit>en-l.exikon (Augsburg,
1858-82), III, pp. 461-464 ; and J. Gorres, Die christliche Mystik
(French translation, La Mystique divine, natnrelle et diaholiquc, Paris,
1854-55), in which many references to St. Joseph will be found, as,
for example, in Vol. I, on pp. 136 ff., 173, 289, 293, 331, 353, and
in Vol. II, on pp. 302 ff. and 339. The levitations are dealt with
in Vol. II, ch. xxii.

Among more modern writers Norman Douglas has an amusing
chapter on St. Joseph in his Old Calabria (London, 1917), pp. 71-86,
with which may be compared his " A Pioneer of Aviation " in the North
American Review for July, 1913, CXCVIII, pp. 101-107. Similarly,
Olivier Leroy has some details with reprints of original sources in
his La Levitation (Paris, 1928), which has been translated into English
and published in London the same year ; and L. Menzies has a
few words on St. Joseph in his The Saints of Italy (London, 1924),
pp. 258 ff.

The works of Pope Benedict XIV, which I have myself used,
are the sixth edition of the Opera Omnia (Prati, 1839-47) ; and with
these may be consulted with advantage N. Baudeau's Analyse de
I'ouvrage du Pope Benoit XLV (Migne, Theol. cursus compl., torn. 8,
851 ff.). On p. 928 will be found a discussion on the methods of
obtaining evidence.

Details of the lives of some of the ecclesiastics who testified to
the powers of St. Joseph, or who were associated with him at the
time, will be found in the appropriate source books. Thus, for
Antonio Bichi see P. Compagnoni's Memorie . . . d'Osimo (Roma,
1782-83), IV, pp. 281-320 ; the Dictionnaire des Cardinaux (J. P.
Migne, Encyclop. Thc'ol., ser, III, 31, Paris, 1856), and L. Cardella's
Memorie storiche de Cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa (Roma, 1792-97),

VI, p. 306, and VII, p. 136. For Facchinetti, see Cardella, op. cit.,

VII, p. 28, and for Cardinal Giulio Spinola, see Diet, des Cardinaux,
1540, and F. Ughelli, Italia Sacra (Romae, 1644-62), I, 832.97.
For Bonaventura Claver, see Ughelli, op. cit., VII, 144.46 ; and
for Cardinal Francesco Rapaccioli, see Diet, des Cardinaux, 1441,
and Ughelli, op. cit., I, 765.62. Similarly, for Hyacinth Libelli,
see J. H. Zedler, Grosses Vollstiindiges Universal Lexicon, 768, and
J. Echard, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum . . . (Lutetiae Parisiorum,
1719-21), II, 70IA.

For the lay visitors to St. Joseph, see the various national
biographical collections, such as the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic,
and for the tour of the Due de Bouillon mentioned in the text, see

I/O

SOMli HUMAN ODDITIES

P. Duval's l.c voyage et la description d' Italic . . . (Paris, 1656), and
for the life of Isabella Clara, see La Vie de Claire-Isabele, archiduchesse
d'Inspruk . . . ([Paris?] 1696), and cf. A.S., op. cit., 1036. For
the conversion of Blume, see A. Raess, Die Convertiten seit der
Reformation (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1866-80), VI, pp. 450-452,
558-571 ; and for the Admiral of Castile, see Zedler, op. cit.,
1569, and cf. L. Pastor's Lives of the Popes, Vol. 30 (London, 1940),
pp. 58 ff. For Leopold of Tuscany, see A.S., op. cit., 1034 ; Diet,
des Cardinaux, 1232, and the Enciclopedia Italiana (Milano, 1929, etc.),
V, pp. 797 ff. ; X, p. 250A ; XIII, p. 12c ; XXII, p . 695 f. ;
XXIX, p. 43c.

For accounts of Copertino in the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries, see, among others, L. Tasselli, Anticbita di
Leuca (Lecce, 1693), where a short historical account of Copertino
is given in Lib. II, p. 235, and where St. Joseph is mentioned in
Lib. Ill, Cap. 23, p. 513 ; the curious book, Zodiaco di Maria (Napoli,
1715), by Serafino Montorio, where the reader will find mention of
St. Joseph on p. 515 ; and finally, G. B. Pacichelli, II Regno di
Napoli in prospettiva diviso in dodeci provincie ... 3 Pts. (Napoli,
1703), where the district in which Copertino is situated is described
and its fertility emphasized, and where its famous thaumaturge is
styled that " prodigy of Christian virtue " (Pt. 2, pp. 180-181).

For the case of Magdalena de la Cruz, see the manuscript in the
British Museum (Egerton 357, Catal. of the MSS. in the Spanish
language, 1875, I, p. 451), Sucesso de Madalena de la Cru^, monja professa
del Monasterio de Santa Isabel de los Angeles de la orden de Santa Clara, y
natural de la villa de Aguilar, y su sentencia dada por el Santo Tribunal
de la Inquisicion de Cordoba en 3 de Mayo de 1546, of which a French
translation will be found in Vol. II, pp. 462 ff. of C. L. A. Campan's
Mcmoires de Francisco de Enzinas (Bruxelles, 1 862-3). Another manu-
script, Processo de Madalena de la Cruz^, is in the Bibliotheque Nationale
(see Bib. Nat., Catal. des manuscrits espagnols, Paris, 1892, 354 (630),
fol. 248-269, p. 242).

More easily accessible information will be found in the Historia
critica de la Inquisicion de Espana, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1870), by J. A.
Llorente, Vol. I, Cap. XVI, Art. IV, pp. 333 ff. ; L. F. Calmeil,
De la Folic, 2 vols. (Paris, 1845), I, pp. 248-256, where it is said
that Del Rio stated that Balban threw her up in the air and then
let her fall down so as to injure her ; and for earlier printed sources
see, for example, J. Wier, Histoire, disputes et discours des illusions et
impostures ... 2 vols. (Paris, 1885), which is a reprint of the 1579

APPENDIX

1 / 1

edition, and where Magdalena 1:. mentioned in l.iv. VI, c. 6, Vol.

II, pp. 232 ff. ; M. Del Rio, Disquisilionum magicarum libri sex
(Moguntiae, 1612), lib. [I, [Must. XVII, 185.2, c; Lib. IV, Sec.

III, 509.1, b; and Lib. V, Sec. XVI, 784.2, D: and V. F.
Torreblanca, Daemonologia sivc de magia nalurali . . . (Moguntiae,
1623), but especially the same writer's Epitome dclictorurn, sive de
magia . . . (Lugdum, 1678), p. 187. For her levitation, seethe
Acta Sanctorum, Oct., Vol. VII, 569B, where we read that " in
solemni pompa festorum dierum ad tres et amplius cubitos in
sublime efferebatur."

For Maria de la Visitacion, see Copia verdadera de la sentenzia que
se pronunzjo en Lisboa a siete dias del mes de Noviembre de 1388, which
will be found in Reformistas antiguos espanoles, 1854, torn. VIII : Les
grands miracles et les tressainctes plaies advenu^ a la R. Mere Prieure de
monasteire de I'Anonciade (Paris, 1586), which may have been the
source for Cipnano de Valera's Enjambre de los falsos milagros (see
Los dos tratados, etc., Obras antiguas de los Espanoles Reformados, 1851,
torn. VI, pp. 554-594, etc., which was also issued in an English
version in London in 1600. If further information is still required,
see the Relatione del Miracolo delle Stimmate venute nuovamente ad una
Monacha dell' Ordine di S. Domenico, in Portogallo, nella citta di Lisbona
(Bologna, 1584), and L. de Paramo, De origine et progress^ officii Sanctae
Inquisitioms . . . libri tres (Matriti, 1589), pp. 233-234 and 302-304.
Cf. also f. 124 of Egerton MS. 357 mentioned above.

CHAPTER TWO

JAMES ALLEN : THE MAN WHO WAS NOT

The problem underlying the story of James Allen and the other
women who have dressed as men is that which is generally known
as transvestism, or cross-dressing. The reason why men sometimes
wish to dress as women and women as men is an extremely complex
one, and little serious work has been done on it either in England
or in the United States. Many factors, some of them very mixed,
are present, but generally speaking it may be said that in every
persistent case there is considerable disorganization in the psychic
and even possibly in the physical life of the individual concerned.
In certain cases actual physical abnormalities are to be found in
which the sex of the person involved is not wholly clear, the
features of both being preserved in a certain, although always
incomplete, degree. In other cases, which are more difficult to
understand (such as that of James Allen herself), we find no evidence
of any physical abnormality ; and thus it is more probable that
the basic factor is psychological, although even here it would be
hazardous to assume that there was absolutely no physical element
whatever present in the case.

Apart from these rather complicated examples there are, of
course, numerous instances in which the sheer love of adventure and
freedom has made women dress as men ; and the use of slacks at
the present time is a simple illustration of an approach towards
men's traditional attire in which there are present few, if any, of
those complex factors which enter in what may be called the
practice of pure transvestism. In cases of the latter sort the trans-
vestites themselves are sometimes homosexually inclined, although
it must be remembered that not all homosexuals are transvestites
and not all transvestites homosexuals. I well remember that in the
house of a friend of mine whom I used to visit, and where all the
occupants but one were homosexuals, half were transvestites when
at home, although in carrying out their daily work all wore the
clothes associated with their physical sex.

It can thus be seen that the problem is closely bound up with
the problem of homosexuality in general. The most interesting

APPIiNDI X

cases to explain fully are, perhaps, those like thai ol |amei Allen
or James Barry, where a person with apparently no anatomical
peculiarities ol any sort takes on the garb ol the opposite sex and
succeeds in eluding discovery for a lifetime.

The principal source for the life and adventures of James Allen
is the pamphlet published in London in 1829, and entitled An
authentic narrative of the extraordinary career of James Allen, the female
husband. Apart from this a good deal of information can be derived
from the Press of the same year, among the newspapers consulted
being The Standard, Jan. 15, 17 ; The Times, Jan. 15, 17, 19, 20 and
22 ; The Morning Chronicle, Jan. 15, 17 ; The Weekly Dispatch, Jan. 18 ;
Bell's Weekly Messenger, Jan. 18, and The Morning Herald, Jan. 19. A
note also appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine for Jan. 12, 1829,
Vol. XCIX, p. 92.

The standard work on transvestism is Magnus Hirschfeld's Die
Transvestiten (Berlin, 1910-12), with which may be used " Eonism
and other supplementary studies," by the late Havelock Ellis
(Studies in the Psychology of Sex (New York, 1936), Vol. Ill, Pt. 2).

More popular accounts, which pay little attention to the scientific
and medical aspects of the question, are O. P. Gilbert, Women in
Men's Guise (London, 1932) ; M. West, " Women who have passed
as Men " (Mmsey's Mag., New York, 1901, pp. 273-281) ; and C. J.
Bulhet, Venus Castina (New York, 1933). With these may be
consulted the more serious " L'interversion des habillements
(Ann. mid. psychol, 1909, Ser. 9, IX, pp. 29-36), by P. Hospital ;
and " Transvestitismus und Staat am Ende des 18 u. am 19.
Jahrhundcrt " (Ztschr. f. Sexualwiss., 1928, XV, pp. 116-126), by
H. Haustein. For a lighter touch, see the novel 2.833 Mayjair
(London, 1907), by Frank Richardson.

For Elvira de Cespedes (or Elena y Eleno de Cespedes), see the
MS. at Halle, quoted by H. C. Lea in his History of the Inquisition
in Spain (New York, 1906-7), IV, pp. 187 fF., and cf. the Catdlogo
de las causas contra la fe seguidas ante el Tribunal . . . de Toledo (Madrid,
1903), p. 84.

A considerable amount of material has been devoted to Mary
Moders, of which a representative selection is to be found in the
British Museum, although some of the rarer tracts are missing, such
as The Female Hector, or the German Lady turned Monsieur (London,
1663), and The Lawyers Clarke Trappand by the Crafty Whore of
Canterbury (London, 1663), of which Hazlitt records a different title
variant.

'74

somi; HUMAN ODiMTIHS

Mary Ann Talbot's life was written while she was still alive,
and was originally published in Kirby's Wonderful Museum, in 1804,
a fuller version being later issued in 1809. It was entitled The Life
and Surprising Adventures of Mary Ann Talbot in the name of John Taylor,
a natural daughter of the Late Earl Talbot ; comprehending an Account of
her extraordinary Adventures in the character of Foot-boy, Drummer,
Cabin-boy, and Sailor . . . Related by Herself.

The case of Anne Grand] ean excited a good deal of attention in
1765. In that year a Memoire pour Anne Grandjean was published in
Paris, and the Re'fl exions sur les hermaphrodites, relativement a Anne
Grandjean was issued in Avignon and Lyon. Further details will be
found in G. Arnaud de Ronsil's Dissertation sur les Hermaphrodites
(Paris, 1766), of which the first edition was published in England
in 1750, and in J. Rcuter's Beitrag zur Lehre von dem Hermaphrotismus
(Wiirzburg, 1885), in which the legal position is discussed in
reference to the decree by the Parliament of Paris in 1765 that
Anne was a woman. See also the Paris thesis by Georges Dailliez,
entitled Les Sujets de scxe douteux (Lille, 1892), p. 95, for list of
similar cases, and the Repertoire universel et raisonne de jurisprudence . . .
5 e ed., revue par M. Merlin (Paris, 1827-8), VII, pp. 450-451, where
the anatomical details will be found.

Similarly, the material concerning Catalina de Erauso is not
scanty. See, for example, the Enciclopedia universal ilustrada Europeo-
Americana (Barcelona, 1905, etc.), XX, p. 412 ; Didot's Nouvellc
biographic gene-rale (Pans, 1855-1866), XVI, 221 ; Michaud's
Biographic universale (Paris, 1843-66), XII, p. 540 ; the Italian
Biografia universale (Venezia, 1822, etc.), Supp. LXXV, p. 384, and
the Revue encyclopedique , 1829, XLIII, pp. 742-744. Individual
biographies are the well-known Historia de la monja Alfere^ . . .
escrita por elle misma (Paris, 1829), of which there are French trans-
lations in 1830 and 1894, and an English version by J. Fitzmaurice-
Kelly in 1908.

The story of Maximiliana von Leithorst appeared in the
Vossische Zeitung (Nr. 127 of 1749) '< ar >d tri e case of the peasant
girl in Malmo in Nr. 173 of the Hamburgischer Correspondent in 1728.
With the latter story can be profitably compared the history of the
village maiden who disguised herself as a man and married the
daughter of her employer with whom she had become enamoured.
It will be found in the rare Arrest contre les chastre^. Aucc deffence a
ceux de contracter Mariage, comme estans trompeurs & affronteurs de lilies et,
de jemmes (Paris, 1622).

APPENDIX

Hannah Sncll's history was published 111 i,',o by K. Walker, in
two editions, in which the title pages diller slightly. The title ol
what may be the first edition reads I he Female Soldier; or, the sur-
prising life and adventures of Hannah Sntll, Horn in the City of Worcester,
who took upon herself the mime of James Cray ; and, being deserted by her
husband, put on Men's Apparel, and Travelled to Coventry in quest of him,
where she enlisted in Colonel Guise's Regiment, and marched with thai
regiment to Carlisle, in the Time of the Rebellion in Scotland ; shewing what
happened to her in that City and her Desertion from that Regiment. Also,
A Full and True Account of her enlisting afterwards into Eraser's Regiment
of Marines, then at Portsmouth : And her being draughted out of that
Regiment, and sent on board the Swallow Sloop of War, one of Admiral
Boscawcns Squadron, THEN BOUND FOR THE EAST-LNDIES.
With the many vicissitudes of Fortune she met with during that expedition,
particularly at the Siege of Pondichcrry, where she received Twelve Wounds.
Likewise, the surprising Accident by which she came to hear of the death of
her faithless Husband whom she went in quest of. Together with an account
of what happened to her in the Voyage to England, in the Eltham Man of
War. The whole containing the most surprising incidents that have happened
in any prececding Age, wherein is laid open all her Adventures, in Mens
Cloaths,for near five years, without her Sex being ever discovered.

The story of Phoebe Hessel, that " jolly old fellow " as George
IV called her, is to be found in a number of places dealing with
such local characters. The Dictionary of National Biography accords
her a place in Vol. XXVI, p. 298, and further details (including
the inscription on her tomb in the Church of St. Nicholas,
Brighton) will be found in Notes and Queries, Series I, VI, p. 170,
and Series V, I, p. 222. With these may be compared the Naval
and Military Gazette for 1853, p. 630 ; F. Harrison, Notes on Sussex
Churches, 3rd ed. (Hove, 1911), p. 58; The King's England: Sussex,
ed. by A. Mee (London, 1937), p. 60 ; O. Sitwell and M. Barton,
Brighton (London, 1935), p. 251, and T. W. Hemsley, St. Nicholas
Church, Brighton (Brighton, 1896), p. 38.

The case of the foreman who was called up for military service
in 1916 will be found reported in the Press of that year, as, for
example, in the Daily News and Leader for August 15. The story of
the woman in Glasgow, who worked for several years in a local
factory, will be found in the Press for April 1932, as, for instance,
The Daily Telegraph of April 25 and the Daily Herald of April 26.

The Teddmgton case was reported in July 1932, for which see,
among others, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Herald, News Chronicle and

176

SOMR HUMAN OODITII-S

Daily Sketch for July 30, 1932 ; whilst for the Aston Magna case,
see the Daily Herald for August 29, 1932.

The Chicago case was reported in the American papers early in
January 1943, the Chicago journals carrying an account on 3rd
January, the day after the woman was arrested, and other papers,
such as The Courier-Journal of Louisville, a few days later.

Many similar instances are on record, and a few of the earlier
ones in which an alleged change of sex was established were collected
by M. Pool and W. Turner in their A Compleat History of the most
remarkable providences . . . (London, 1797), where a curious collection
is included in chapter xiv, cases indeed which, as the authors aver,
" appear incredible to Persons of but common Improvements."
The case of " Mrs. Mary, alias Mr. George Hamilton," excited
much interest in the eighteenth century (see The Female Husband)
(London, 1746) ; and similarly, the case of Eliza Edwards (see
Authentic Account ! Second Edition ! Full report of the dissection . . .
(Duncombe, 1833) was famous at the time by reason of the medical
disclosures (see London Medical and Physical Journal, Feb. 1833, p. 168).

The Caroline Winslow Hall case caused a sensation in the
United Slates in October 1901, which probably equalled that of
the famous Colonel Barker in England. It will be found reported
in the British Press in, for example, the Illustrated Police News for
Oct. 12, p. n, and the News of the World for Oct. 6, p. 3.

Special clubs and resorts patronized by transvestites are known
in nearly all large cities, as, for example, the two Eldorados in the
Luthersrasse and at the corner of the Motz-and Kalkreuthstrasse in
the Berlin of the 1930's ; and the Monbijou Club (in which all
men were rigidly excluded) could be compared with the famous
Lesbian clubs and cafts, such as the Violetta, the Olala (Ziethen-
strasse), the Verona Diele, the Domino Bar and the famous Mikado
on the Puttkamerstrasse.

Such resorts were known to many in the majority of the pre-war
capitals in Europe, but few knew of the spectacular Negro trans-
vestite drag dances which used to be held in Washington and
elsewhere in the late nineteenth century, but which, on account of
their nature, received but little attention in the Press.

In conclusion, it may be added that transvestism is not a
phenomenon associated exclusively with modern Western culture,
but is found in various parts of the world in different forms. This
is not the place to discuss the matter, although I might refer the
interested reader to J. Klciweg de Zwaan, who dealt with the

APPBNDIX

1 ,7

exchange ul clolhmg he( ween men >nd women in the Rtvut
Anthropologic, K).'.|, pp. id.' 11. |, and (o RenaiitTs important
account of the very curious Sarimbavy ol Madagascar in I In- Annates
d'Hyg. et de Med. colon., 1900, III, pp. 562-568. As lar as I am aware
the only source for correspondence and discussions among modern
English transvestites are journals like London Life, where, for example,
Brother of the Shadow " contributed an article on " The Strange
Lure of Transvestism" in the issue for 20th July 1940, pp. 18 if.,
with which may be compared the same journal for 27th July 1940,
pp. 68 ff., and 3rd August 1940, pp. 15 ff.

CHAPTER THREE

BERBIGUIER : BOTTLER OF SPIRITS

Apart from its lighter, and perhaps from one point of view, its
more amusing side, the story of Berbiguier is mainly of interest to
the student of abnormal psychology and psychiatry, and above all,
to the specialist in paranoid schizophrenia. The case presents a
classic picture of the slow and progressive growth of a systematized
delusional pattern, which finally became the central point round
which all Berbiguier's interests and activities revolved. Although
it can readily be seen that the foundations were being laid during
his early years, it was not until later that the delusions began to
develop and crystallize round a central nucleus of religious belief,
which Berbiguier shared with hundreds of his countrymen.

The physical weakness which, on account of incidents in his
childhood, influenced the whole of Berbiguier's life, was doubtless
partially responsible for the compensatory pattern which formed an
important part of the delusional system during its early develop-
ment. Coupled with this arose the idea of how the exalted position,
which he had been called upon to fill, was to be justified by acts of
social significance. From catching the goblins which annoyed him
personally, he proceeded to ensnare those which threatened the
prosperity and security of France. His mission had thus a Divine
sanction, and his entire life became organized round the central
theme. The drive for self-expression succeeded in reaching a
solution personally satisfying and since, through diverse psycho-
logical factors in the personality make-up, a " normal " solution
could not be achieved, a kind of substitute was created, which
fulfilled all the yearnings of the frustrated spirit, and which was
supported by a complex of logical interpretations constructed upon
invalid premises.

As has been briefly indicated in the text, it is not certain how
far Berbiguier's delusional system was connected with any homo-
sexual tendencies which he might be thought to have possessed.
Freud's own views as to the relation between paranoia and homo-
sexuality, in which the idea that the patient's guilty impulses are
projected, as it were, on to the creatures persecuting him, are set

APPENDIX

179

forth in, lor example, volume three of (lie jahibwb jiir r>\uhoiiiuilysr
and need not be recapitulated here. It is merely sufficient to say
that in Berbiguier's case there would seem some evidence to suggest
the existence of this element in his life, and it should not therelore
be neglected in any appraisal of the material at our disposal.

The literature relating to Berbiguier is somewhat meagre, and
most of the original sources have already been given in the text.
A translation of the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII will be found in
M. Summers, The Geography of Witchcraft (London, 1927), pp. 533 fF.,
and reprinted in the same author's edition of the Malleus Malcficarum
(London, 1928), pp. xliii-xlv. Short references to Berbiguier will
be found in Michaud's Biographic Univcrselle (Paris 1843-66) ;
Didot's Nouvcllc Biographic Univcrselle (Paris, 1855-66) ; C. F. H.
Barjavel's Dictionnaire historique, biographique et bibliographique du
department de Vaucluse (Carpentras, 1841), I, pp. 172-174 and
J. P. Migne's Encyclopedic Thcologique (Paris, 1844-49), XLVIII, 1846,
with which may be compared J. F. F. Champfleury [i.e. Jules
Fleury], Les Excentriques (Paris, 1855), pp. 102-132, ^and A. Alkan,
Berbiguier : m hallucine et son livre Les " Farfadets " (Paris, 1889).
A. Erdan's reference to Berbiguier as a dangerous imbecile will be
found in Vol. I, p. 106, of the second edition of his La France
Mystique (Amsterdam, 1858).

For reference to the help given to Berbiguier in the production
of Les Farfadets, see Philomneste Junior [i.e. P. G. Brunet], Les Fous
Litte'raires (Bruxelles, 1880), p. 18, with which cf. R. M. Reboul,
Anonytnes . . . de la Provence (Marseille, 1878), 262, p. 58.

With regard to Dr. Philippe Pinel a general account of his views
will be found in his Traite me'dico-philosophiquc sur Valicnation mcntale
(2 e ed., Paris, 1809), where on p. 85 will be found some remarks
on dealing with a patient believing herself to be affected by
demoniacal agencies.

In considering the case of Berbiguier the student may, perhaps,
be excused if he ask himself why it is that the author of Les Farfadets
is now considered to have been a victim of a form of paranoid
schizophrenia and many of his predecessors sane men and women.
For instance, take the case of Abbot Richalmus who directed the
Cistercian house at Schoental (Speciosa Vallis) in Franconia in the
thirteenth century. Here was a man who, when he closed his
eyes, saw demons thick as dust about him. It is true that he did
not make any close estimate of their numbers, which other
authorities affirmed were 11,000,000,000,000 in one case and

SOMK HUMAN ODDITIES

44' 6 35.5 6 9 * n another. All he did was to note their effects on
mankind and on himself. If a person had a well-formed nose, then
a demon would endeavour to wrinkle it : if the lips were fashioned
in pleasant curves, then the demons would do their best to deform
them. Indeed, in one case, the good Abbot informs us, a demon
spent twenty years in hanging on to one unfortunate lower lip in
order to render it pendent and ill-favoured. Moreover, it was not
always the fleas and the lice which left stinging reminders of their
bites. It was the work of demons, who not only plagued mankind
thus, but even went so far as to cause the inside to rumble, and
worst of all, to bring on a desire to retch just after receiving the
Blessed Sacrament. (See Richalmus, Liber revelationum it insiiiis et
versutiis daemonum adversus homines.) In B. Pez, Thesaurus anec. noviss.,
Aug. Vind. et Graecii, 1721, I, Pt. 2, 373-472, and cf. Cap. XII,'
col. 396 ; Cap. XXIX, 416 ; and Cap. XLI, 421, etc. For a note
on the Abbot, see C. de Visch, Bihliotheca scriptorum Sacri Ordinis
Cisterciensis (Duaci, 1649), pp. 227, 288.)

It would seem, therefore, that Abbot Richalmus even went
further than Beibiguier when it was a question of a detailed
acquaintance with the population of Satan's invisible empire ; and
it is noteworthy, perhaps, that the Abbot, the Scourge and Dr.
Lyttelton all agree that the demons are wont to favour the bedroom
as a fruitful field for their operations. Is it only the form in which
Berbiguier's belief manifested itself that makes one suspect that he
was not quite sane ? Was it because he thought that it were possible
to bottle the demon rather than let it hang on to a person's lip
for twenty years that his sanity was questioned ? Which, indeed,
is the madder idea ? Perhaps, if one believes in demons at all,
these ideas are bound to crop up and bother us. Perhaps Berbiguier
was not mad after all. He may have been merely a little old-
fashioned and more practical in dealing with the problem than the
old Abbot of Schoental five hundred years previously.

CI1APTKK 1 OUR

THE DEACON OF PARIS: DEAD BUT STILL ACTIVE

To those who know anything of the hysterical epidemics associated
with theomania, the choice that I have made of the convulsions at
St. M^dard will come as no surprise. It is true that the phenomena
to be observed there were neither novel nor wholly unknown.
These outbreaks of delirious frenzy had swept over parts of Europe
for certain periods down the centuries ; but the nature and form
of the manifestations had become much enriched through the
influence of the belief in witchcraft, diabolism and demon possession.
For example, in the eleventh century there were some curious
epidemics in which people were seized by an uncontrollable desire
to dance, jump and contort their bodies as they leapt into the air
or rolled upon the ground, gnashing their teeth and foaming at the
mouth. In the fourteenth century the number of such epidemics
seemed to be accentuated ; and as the years went by and the
influence of Satan was proclaimed from many a pulpit, the seizures
appeared to increase in violence, and even the inmates of monasteries
and nunneries became infected by the strange malady. From the
Old World the epidemics spread, or rather, perhaps, made their
appearance in the New ; and even in Boston people barked like
dogs and mewed like cats just as their predecessors had done years
before in the European religious houses.

Here and there the phenomena became more mixed. In addition
to the convulsions and hysterical contractions of the limbs other
odd phenomena were manifested. Immunity to pain was demon-
strated ; the gifts of healing and apparent clairvoyance were shown ;
and other divine (or diabolic) prodigies made even the most sceptical
shake their heads.

Nowhere could such a striking variety be found in the eighteenth
century as in the cemetery of St. Medard and in the back rooms
of the surrounding houses. Here could be found nearly every
phenomenon, which in these sophisticated days we are inclined to
associate with faith healing, hysterical anaesthesia, spasms and
convulsions, both tonic and clonic, clairvoyant faculties, and other
manifestations which nowadays, as has been said, we are accustomed

181

SOME HUMAN ODDITIES

t0 attribute to the effects of hypnotism, mass suggestion and even

common fraud. ,. c .

As has been indicated in the text the literature regarding bt.
Medard is enormous, and only the most useful sources can be

mentioned here. . . , ,

For a short account of the life of Francois cle Pans, see Didot s
Nouvclle Biographic Universelk (Pans, 1855-66), XXXIX, 205 ff., and
Michaud's Biographic Universelk (Paris, 1843-66), XXXII, pp. 137
individual biographies being written by P. Boyer, B. Doyen and
Barbeau dc la Bruyere, and all published in 1731-

The principal source from which I have drawn most largely is
the new edition of La Veritc' des Miracles ope'res par I' intercession dc
MdcPans . . . (Cologne, 1745-47), by L. B. C^e de Montgeron,
who, a sceptic in his early life, became converted through his
personal investigation of the phenomena at the cemetery, and
presented the first volume of his work to the king, who promptly
threw him into prison. With fanatical persistency, however, he
continued his labours ; and two more volumes were published
containing an enormous mass of observations, the testimony of
eye-witnesses, and the reports of medical men who had themselves
inquired into the alleged miraculous cures.

During the appearance of Carre de Montgeron s work the
opponents of the movement were busy. In 1738 J. V. BKUU
d'Asfeld brought out his Vains efforts des mclangistcs on discemans dans
LW des convulsions . . . (much quoted by Carre de Montgeron) ;
and the celebrated Benedictine, Lous Bernard de la Taste published
an attack on the convulswnnaircs in his Lcttrcs Theologies (Paris,
1740) although some may think that he somewhat weakened his
case by his partiality for the theory of demonic possession.

Some attempt to invoke more natural causes was made in 175^
by Philippe Hecquet when he issued his Lc Naturalism des Convulsions
dans les maladies de V epidemic convulsionnairc . . . (Soleure, 1752; .
and he is one of the few authors who sensed the erotic significance
of much underlying many of the phenomena, and above all, the
flagellation (see pp 35. 155 ff- and 69-70). It was also Hecque
who was the author of a book on Charlotte Laporte (La Suceusc
Convulsionnairc), which was issued m 173 6 -

The case of Mile. Coirin will be found in Carre de Montgeron,
op at I, Dan, VII; that of the sucker in II, Idee, etc., 19 ft
and that of the Eater of Ordure in III, p. 100 of the same work.
It need hardly be pointed out that scatophagy has a world-wide

AI'IM'NPIX

distribution, being mentioned several limrs in I l»|y Writ
Exek .v. .2; •'. Kings win. .-.7; Isaiah xxxv. ..>.) and tn
watte products of A human body and a that ol annuals
have played a part both in religion and in lolk medicine. On this
ub e see for example, J. G. Bourke, Otologic Rites of all Nations
W h ngton 8 9I ), and the same author's Compilation of Notes an
ZZranL faring upon the use oj human ordure and human urine ^
of a religious or semi-religious character among various nations (Washing-

^'uCondamine's account of the crucifixion of Francoise will be
found in the Corresponds litte'rairc, philosophise ct
Grimm, Diderot, etc (Paris, 1877. etc.), IV, p. 3 7 9 - JJ* wtuch
may be compared Du Dover de Gastel's account (p. 388) and the
Conversations avec M. dc la Banc (p. 208).

The story of the crucifixion of Etiennette Thomasson will be
found in A. Dubreuil's Etude historic sur les Fareimstcs, I77£I»»4
Lyon, I9 o8), pp. 9 6 ff. ; and for the Bonjour brothers see Did ,
V*, VI, 604; Michaud, op. cit., V, p i 4) and J. B. Ghure,
Dictionnairc universe! des sciences ecck'siastiaues (Pans 868) I , p.
For further details on the Fareinists, see Phihbert le Due, Curiosites
iZoriaZ de VAin (Bourg, 1877-*) I C. Jarrin Lc Fareinisnu ^Boug,
881) and C. Perroud, who collected some of the documents in the
Ann es dc la Soc. d' emulation agric, kttrcs et arts dc I Am (Fascs. av
mai & iuin 1873). A note on the movement was also contributed
Ty Bishop H. Gregoire in his Histoire des Sectcs religicuscs (Paris,

^lofFI^^n- n on the phenomena at SL Medard, see his
Enquiries concerning the human understanding (Oxford, 1902), pp. 125
and 344- with which may be compared the attack on the phdosopher
by John Douglas, later Bishop of Salisbury, who, in his The
Criterion ; or rules by which the true miracles recorded in the
New Tes ament are distinguished from the spurious miracles of
Pains and Papists " (In : Select Works (Salisbury, 1820), pp. 383 ff-)
pits out the Frauds and failures which accompanied the phenomena,
together with the influence of natural curative factors, and is at
pains to show that Hume himself was unnecessarily impressed with
the evidence accumulated about them.

Finally, for those who are unable to consult Carre de Mont-
aeron's work, of which the third volume is not easy to find, I may
add that a useful summary of phenomena among the Jansenist
given by P. F. Mathieu, Histoire des miracles et des convulstonnatrts de

SOMIi HUMAN ODDI I'lliS

St. Medard (Paris, 1864), and H. Blanc, U tntrveilleux dans le
jansinisme . . . (Paris, 1865), in which the Morzine epidemic is
dealt with, together with an account of the convulsions as seen in
Holland.

Further general sketches of the epidemics will be found in the
various dictionaries, such as J. M. A. Vacant's Diet, dc thiol, cath.
(Paris, 1909, etc.), Ill, 1756 ff. ; J. B. Jaugey, Diet. apol. de la foi
cath. (Paris, 1889), 628^642, and a short list of contemporary
material in the " Tables des Matieres " of the Nouvelles Ecclisi-
astiques for 1734-1737 under the word Edits, and cf. the entry under
Miracles. For the famous " Consultation sur les Convulsions," see
Nouvelles Ecclisiastiqucs, 1735, p. 50, and cf. the list of Jansenist books
by D. Colonia (Anvers, 1752).

The appearance of the convulsions in the New World had as
close a connexion with religion as it had in Europe. At the
Protestant revival meetings, when hundreds used to attend the
camps in order to listen to the ravings of salvation preachers, the
convulsions and jerks were as violent as we have seen them else-
where. Alexander Mackay, in his The Western World (London,
1849), Vol. Ill, pp. 267 ff., describes what took place, and ascribes
the success of the peripatetic enthusiasts to the pervading boredom
which required but to be lifted to put thousands in a frenzy.
Again, T. C. Grattan, writing in the middle of the nineteenth
century, mentions the periodic outbursts of revivals, in which
could be seen people howling and yelling, passing into trances,
ecstasies and convulsions, and contorting their features and limbs
into grotesque shapes (Civilised America (London, 1859), Vol. II,
pp. 341 ff.).

Similarly, Thomas L. Nichols, in his Forty Years oj American
Life (London; 1864), describes the nervous and hysterical women
lying senseless on the ground, or rolling about in a frenzy of
religious fervour. A dozen persons at once might be taken by
the power, he says, and might soon be seen to fall into a state
resembling that common in cataleptic seizures.

Perhaps one of the most striking revivals was that in Kentucky,
when the resulting convulsions were popularly known as the
" Kentucky Jerks." Robert Davidson, in his History oj the Presby-
terian Church in Kentucky, describes the epidemic, as did R. McNemar
in his The Kentucky Revival (Cincinnati, 1808). Those more sober
individuals, who remained immune to the effects of the disorder,
were troubled by the violence of the phenomena J and semi-scientific

Aii'i mux

18',

treatises began to appear, like Grant Powers' issay upon the influence
of the imagination on the nervous system (Andover, [828), Felix
Robertson's An essay on chorea Sancli Viti (Philadelphia, 181)5), or
papers on the bodily cllects of religious excitement, one ol which
discussions was published in the first series of the Princeton Theological
Essays in 1846. 1

Further information can be sought in the works of such notable
characters as Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834), the eccentric preacher, or
C. G. Finney, who was chosen as one of the twenty portraits in
David Bartlett's Modern Agitators (New York and Auburn, 1856).

The phenomena at the American revivals can be compared with
those to be seen in England in the eighteenth century, which were
so vividly described in the pages of Wesley's Journal (see Ed. N.
Curnock, London, 1909, etc., IV, pp. 291, 295, 300, 344, 349,
359, 431, 434, 483, 485, etc.). The convulsive trembling was, it
was picturesquely reported, like " a cloth in the wind " ; and the
ranting of the preachers caused even young children to fall into
convulsions, whilst Wesley himself was glad to see one woman, a
noted sinner, rolling on the ground screaming and roaring.

A more modern approach and discussion of the subject can be
seen in F. M. Davenport's Primitive traits in religious revivals (New
York, 1905), which surveys the general field in the light of early
twentieth-century psychology, although the omission of adequate
bibliographical assistance weakens what might have been a useful
introduction to the student.

This is not the place to enter into any discussion of the convulsive
phenomena as they can be observed among peoples uninfluenced by
the Christian conceptions of hell, damnation and the power of
Satan. To those, however, who would care to follow up this
matter a little more closely I would recommend consultation of
A. Czaplicka's Aboriginal Siberia (Oxford, 1914), Pt. IV, Chap, xv,
for a discussion of the so-called " Arctic Hysteria," with which
may be compared V. Zenzinov's The Road to Oblivion (London, 1932),
pp. 195, etc., and J. Crad's Trailing through Siberia (London, 1939).
For Shamanism among the Chukchee, sec W. Bogoras in the Mem.

1 A more modern epidemic, in which the religious aspect seemed lacking, was
that series of twitching phenomena which broke out at Bellevue, some fifty miles
from New Orleans. In this case the seizures affected the pupils of a high school,
but it does not appear that it ever presented a serious problem to the local medical
authorities. (See E. A. Schuler and V. J. Parenton, " A recent epidemic of
hysteria in a Louisiana high school," Jour, of Sac. Psychol., 1943, VII, 221-235.)

t86

SOME HUMAN ODDITlliS

Amer. Mas. Nat. Hist., XI, XII ; Jesttp North Pacific Exped., VII, Pts. 1-3,
VIII, Pt. 1 (Leiden, New York, 1904-13), especially VII, 2, pp.
413-465. Finally, for an account of the famous Ghost Dance of
some of the American Indians, see, inter alia, James Mooney, " The
Ghost Dance Religion," in the 14th Ann. Rept. Amer. Bur. of Ethnology,
1892-3, Pt. II, with which may be compared the more recent
account of the 1870 Ghost Dance by C. Du Bois in Anthropological
Records, 1939, III, Nr. 1, which deals with the dance in California ;
whilst for a general survey of related themes, see Weber's
" Psychische Epidemien im Vblkerleben " (Korresp. Bl. i. deut.
Cesellschaft J. Anthrop., 1906, pp. 74-75).

CHAPTER FIVE

D. D. HOME : SORCERER OF KINGS

The problem underlying the life and work of D. D. Home can
be briefly summed up by saying that it is the problem of miracles
in its most acute form. Even the word miracle itself is subject to
so many different interpretations that argument is often at cross
purposes, since no agreed definition has been decided on before
discussion begins.

There seems no doubt that the word miraculurn in Latin is
closely connected with the word mirari and its derivatives, which
mean to wonder or to be astonished at, and thus the elements of
marvel and surprise would seem to be essential ingredients in any
attitude displayed by a person when confronted by an event which
he could claim was miraculous or partaking of the nature of a
miracle. Had the word been used in this rather simple manner
(as is still often popularly done), much misunderstanding might
have been avoided, and the arguments of philosophers reduced to
a form less muddled than that which was inevitable as long as
ambiguity was permitted to cloud the discussion.

It is, however, too late to attempt to impose a definite and
unambiguous meaning to the word, and all that we can do is to
try to understand what each writer himself means when using it,
and then follow his arguments on the assumption that the meaning
has not changed in the course of the debate.

There is one element in the general use of the word miracle
which it is important to bear in mind. From the point of view
of the theological writer a miracle is nearly always an act or event
in which the divine or diabolic power is made manifest in a direct
way, so that it might be said that an external interference with mind
or matter is an essential feature if the word miracle is to be applied.
Moreover, in many cases the purpose of the alleged miracle is also
important, inasmuch as marvels unaccompanied by meaning, sue!.;
as signs pointing to divine goodness, are to be classed merely as
magical operations without inner or spiritual significance. It is
true that some difficulty has been caused to Christians by these
interpretations, which are clearly derived from ideas on the nature

SOME MI'MAN ODDITIES

of the miracles of Jesus, but, generally speaking, the miracles of
the Saints can be divided roughly into the two types, although, of
course, any miracle in the theological sense could be used as a
means of illustrating the omnipotence of the Divine Being.

It is the belief that miracles are due to some kind of divine
or diabolic interference with what are sometimes called the " Laws
of Nature " that is partly at the root of the total disbelief in their
occurrence, which is so widely spread in the Western world, and
which is closely connected with the arguments for their impossibility
as advanced by such thinkers in the past as Spinoza and David
Hume, who was justly and very sensibly criticized by T. H. Huxley
from the agnostic point of view.

Apart altogether from the miracles attributed to Christ, many
of those assigned to the Saints are, as I have pointed out elsewhere,
frankly incredible and, viewed from any but the purely legendary-
angle, somewhat ridiculous. Thus the common tale of hanging
clothes up on sunbeams is as fantastic as the stories of babies
crowing with delight in cauldrons of boiling water, and it would
not be easy to find any sane person to-day who puts anv credence
in such fables.

On the other hand, especially since the rise of modern
spiritualism, there have been many persons, who certainly were not
classed as anything but sane among their contemporaries, who have
themselves witnessed and testified to the reality of events which
can justly be called miracles in the simple sense that what they
saw or experienced caused them wonder and astonishment. It is
true that many of these occurrences were due quite clearly to
mal-observation, fraud and similar sources of error. The question
remains, however, whether or not a residuum exists which is not
open to any normal explanation known to us, and is therefore for
the time being, inexplicable. That is the question which confronts
us in the case of D. D. Home, the sorcerer of kings. Here was a
man who was not immured in some religious house, surrounded
by an atmosphere of sanctity and by companions wholly unversed
in modern ways of thought. The phenomena said to occur in his
presence were of a type familiar to all students of the subject, and
many of them bore a startling resemblance to some of those reported
with the Saints of the West and the Holy Men of the East. Yet
all attempts to solve the mystery failed then, as they failed in the
past. Yet, were a satisfactory solution to be arrived at, what a
flood of light would be let into some of the darker fields of human

APPHNDI x

activity. Just a.', modern statistical work on the reality <>i otherwise
ol alleged telepathic phenomena lias caused some workers in this
field to revise their views on earlier experiments, so the verification
ol certain of the so-called physical phenomena might lead us to
revise our present ideas on the nature ol these occurrences, as
reported down the ages and among all peoples.

In the main text I have tried to sketch in broad outline tin-
general psychological atmosphere in which Home lived, and the
kind of mentality common among the persons with whom he
associated. Lights and shadows are both there, and it is for the
reader to fill in, if he can, what lies behind them. D. D. Home
presents an unsolved problem, which, as the years go by, seems no
nearer solution than it did when that early fraud, Apollonius of
Tyana, was puzzling people at the beginning of the Christian era. 1
As I have said in another place, it is for inquirers in the future
to determine how far our ancestors were the victims of delusion or
merely theorists whose ideas were consistent with an age in which
the scientific method was hardly conceived."

The literature relating to D. D. Home is very considerable, and
in the text I have referred only to those sources directly related to
the points under discussion. For convenience of reference I there-
fore append here an alphabetical list of sources, which can be easily
consulted if verification of any of the statements made is desired,
or if further information is required on any of the points raised
during the course of the analysis.

LIST OF SOURCES

Amberley, John Russell, Viscount. " Experiences of Spiritualism," in The

Fortnightly Review, 1874, XV, N.S., pp. 82-91.
Ashbee, Henry Spencer. See Fraxi, Pisanus, pseud.

Aubry, O. L' Imperatricc Eugenic, Paris, 1933. (See the same author's Eugenie,
Empress of the French, London, 1939, pp. 136 ff.

Bac, Ferdinand, pseud. La Cour des Tuileries, Paris, 1930, pp. 163 ff.

, Intimites du Second Empire, 3 vols., Paris, 1931-32, I, pp. 109 ff.

Baroche, Julie. Second Empire : notes et souvenirs, Paris, 1921, pp. 64 ff. (For
M. Baroche see Jean Maurain, Un bourgeois francais au XIX' sie'ele : Baroche,
Paris, 1936, and cf. Baron de Rimini's Memoirs, London, 1888, p. 84, and
Victor Hugo's estimate in Les Chdtiments (Splendeurs, II, line 5).

Beaumont- Vassy, E. F. de, Vicomte. Histoire intime du Second Empire, Paris,
1874, pp. 146 ff., 155 ff.

1 See my Ghosts and Spirits in the Ancient World (London, 1930), pp. 92 ff.

SOMB Human ODDITIES

BBCKBTT, ARTHUR WiLUAW a. Recollections of a humorist , grave and gay, London,
1907, p. 34.

Bell, Robert. "Stranger than Fiction," in The Cornhill Magazine, Aug. i860,

II, pp. 211-224.

Bigelow, John. Retrospection of an active life, 5 vols., New York, 1909-13, IV,
pp. 121 ff.

Blackwell, Anna. See The Times, London, Dec. 26, 1872, and for another
account, in which this lady's mentality can be better appreciated, see the
Report on Spiritualism of the Committee of the London Dialectical Society, London,
1 871, pp. 284 ff.

Blanc, Louis. Dix ans ie Vhistoire d'Angletcrre (1861-70), 10 vols., Paris, 1879-81,

III, pp. 147 ff. ; IV, 264 ff. ; V, 30 ff. ; VIII, 95 ff. (With this may be
compared the remarks of L. M. Strauss in his Remi niscences of an old Bohemian,
London, 1882, vol. II, p. 180.)

Bright, John. Diaries, London, 1930, p. 276.

Brougham, Lord William. See Morgan, Sophia E. de, Threescore years and ten,
London, 1895, p. 209.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Apart from those letters which have not yet
been printed, the main sources for the information given in the text are :
The Poems of E. B. Browning, London, 1892, which includes a memoir by Mrs.
David Ogilvy in which see p. xxiii : Letters to her sister, 1846-59, London,
1929, and with these may be compared A note on William Wordsworth with a
statement of her views on spiritualism, London, 1919, and Letters to B. R. Haydon,
New York, etc., 1939.

Browning, Robert. Letters, London, 1933. (With these may be compared the
article by W. L. Phelps in the Yale Review, 1933, XXIII, no. I, pp. 125-138;
the Twenty-two unpublished letters by R. and E. B. Browning, which were published
in New York in 1935 ; and some notes on Robert Browning's attitude in,
for example, William Allingham's Diary (London, 1907), p. 101, and Frances
Power Cobbe's Life (London, 1904), p. 377.)

Burnand, Sir F. C. Records and Reminiscences, 4th ed., London, 1905, pp. 324 ff.

Caston, Alfred. Les Marchands de Miracles, Paris, 1864, pp. 314 ff., with which
may be compared V. Fournel, Le Vieux Paris, Tours, 1887, pp. 284, 290.

Chorley, Henry F. Autobiography, memoir and letters, z vols., London, 1873,

n, pp. 34 ff.

Clisby, Dr. Harriet. See Stirling, Mrs. A. M. W., Life's Mosaic, London,
1934, pp. 207 ff.

Corkran, Henriette. Celebrities and I, London, 1902, p. 33, and cf. p. 171.
Cowley, Henry Richard Charles, 1st Earl. The Paris Embassy' during the

Second Empire, London, 1928, p. III.
Crookes, Sir William. For Crooke's experiments with D. D. Home, see his

Life by E. E. Fournier d'Albe (London, 1923), pp. 174 ff.
Davtes, C. M. " Something like a seance " in Belgravia, Sept. 1874, pp. 350-356.
, Mystic London, London, 1875, p. 359.

Dickens, Charles. See " The Martyr Medi um " in All the Year Round, April 4,

1863, and in Misc. Papers, London, 1908, II, pp. 233-240. Cf. also G. S.

Layard, Mrs. Lynn Linton, London, 1901, p. 166, and T. A. TrollOPE, What

I Remember, 2 vols., London, 1887, I, p. 125.
Dunraven, W. T. Wyndham-Quin, 4/i Earl of. Experiences in Spiritualism

with D. D. Home, London, 1924. (Originally issued privately in 1870.)

Al'I'l iJIH

191

-- , Past times and pastimes, : vols., I ondon, or-'. I, pp. i" i(

EUOBNIB, Impress oj the Frtnch. iettirs familihes de I Iwpfiattiic liugenie, : vol ..,

Paris, 1935, I, pp. l}5 II.. •">!• (Willi llir Lmpi rs;.'.% auounl <>l our ol I Ionic's

sittings, cf. thai by Mary C M. Simpson hi hct Many memories oj many

people (London, 1898), pp. j2.|. II.)
Fraxi, PlSANUS, pseud, [i.e. H. S. ASHBEe|. Centuria librorum absconditorum, London,

1879, pp. 412 ff.

Gambier, Commander J. W. Links in my life on land and sea, 2nd ed., London,
1907, pp. 282 ff.

GULDENSTUBBE, L. DE. Pncumatologie positive ct experimentale, Paris, 1857. (Later

eds. in 1873 and 1889.)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Passages from the French and Italian notebooks, 2 vols.,

London, 1871, II, pp. 14, 134, 143 ff., 168 ff., 188, etc.
, The Dolliver Romance. Dr. Grimsbawe's Secret (Vols. 11 and 13 of Complete

Works, London, 1893-94). See also Lathrop, Rose Hawthorne, Memories

of Hawthorne, London, 1897, pp. 395 ff., and Hawthorne, Julian, Hawthorne

and his circle, New York and London, 1903, pp. 345-348.
Home, Daniel D. Incidents in my Life, London, 1863. (Second ed., 1864.)

, New York, 1863.

, Second Series, London, 1872.

, Revelations sur ma vie sumaturelle, Paris, 1863.

, (Another ed., 1864. See the review by E. Saveney in

Revue des deux Mondes, Sept. 15, 1863, pp. 376 ff.)

, Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism, London, 1877.

, Chicago, 1877.

, 2nd ed., London, 1878.

, Les Lumieres et les Ombres du Spiritualisms, Paris, 1883.

Home, Mrs. Daniel D. D. D. Home ; his Life and Mission, London, 1888.
, Abridged ed., London, 1921.

The Gift of D. D. Home, London, 1890. (For other biographical material

concerning D. D. Home see the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 27,
p. 225 ; Louis Gardy, Le medium D. D. Home, Geneve, Paris, 1896 ; H.
Wyndham, Mr. Sludge, the Medium, London, 1937 ; Jean Burton, Heyday of
a Wizard, New York, 1944, and the same author's " The Wizard from
Connecticut " in the Atlantic Monthly, April 1944, pp. 47 ff. For a German
appreciation see W. BormanN, Der Schotte Home, Leipzig, 1899.)

Hubner, A. C. J. von. Ncuf ans de souvenirs d'un amhassadeur d'Autriche a Paris,
2 vols., Paris, 1904, II, p. 17.

Lehmann, R. An Artist's Reminiscences, London, 1894, pp. 220, 229 ff.

Lewis, John Delaware. " Recent Spirit Rappings " in Once a Week, Aug. 18,
i860, III, pp. 213 ff.

Liddell, Henry George. See R. Browning, Letters, London, 1933, p. 115.

Linton, E. Lynn. The autobiography of Christopher Kirkland, 3 vols., London, 1885.
(For the Milner-Gibson sittings, see II, pp. 15 ff., and cf. G. S. Layard,
Mrs. Lynn Linton, London, 1901, ch. xiv.)

Lyon v. Home Trial. See Lyon v. Home. Undue influence — Spiritualism (The Law
Reports. Equity Cases, London, 1868, VI, 655-682). The Great Spiritual
Case, Lyon v. Home. Examination of plaintiff and defendant, depositions, etc., London,
1868 ; Annual Register, 1868 (Chronicle), pp. 187-206. Cf. also 37 L. f. Chan.,
674 ; 18 Times, 451 ; 16 Wkly. Rept., 824 ; Journal of the Society for Psychical

SOMF. HUMAN OPDITir

Research, July 1889, IV, pp. 117-119, tnd Nov. 1906, XII, p. JJZ. Fut
unfavourable comments see Parry, Howard A., What the Judpe thought, London,
1922, pp. 201 ff., and the same author's Vagabonds All, London, 192(1 ;
WYNDHAM, H., Dramas of the Law, London, 1936, pp. 15-46.

Lytton, Edward Robert BULWER, 1st Earl of. Letters from Owen Meredith to
Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Ed. by A. B. Harlan and J. L. Harlan,
jr., Waco, 1937, pp. 109-112, 146.

Mask (The). See June 1868, I, pp. 141-146.

Merimee, Prosper. Line correspondence incdite, 2" ed., Paris, 1897, p. 73.

, Lettres a la Comtesse de Montijo, 2 vols., Paris, 1930, vol. II, p. 70.

Milner-Gibson, Mrs., sittings with. See Linton, E. Lynn, and cf. E. H. Yates.
Recollections . . ., London, 1884.

Mirabelli, Carlos. See O Medium Mirabelli, Santos, 1926 ; Mcnsagens do Alem,
Sao Paulo, 1929 ; and cf. E. J. Dingwall, " An Amazing Case " in Psychic
Research (New York), July 1930, XXIV, pp. 296 ff., and the fournal of the

5. P.R., Dec. 1935, XXIX, pp. 141 ff., and Jan. 1936, XXIX, pp. 169-170.
Once a Week. See Lewis, John Delaware, and cf. Katerfelto's articles on Oct.

6, 27, and Nov. 3, i860.

Perovsky-Petrovo-Solovovo, Count. See Proceedings of the Society for Psychical
Research, 1909, XXI, pp. 436 ff., and fournal of the S.P.R., 1912, XV, pp. 274 ff.

Podmore, Frank. See fournal of the S.P.R. July 1908, XIII, p. 272.

Punch. See G. S. Layard, A great " Punch " editor . . . Shirley Brooks, London,
1907, p. 168.

Ritchie, Anne Thackeray, Lady. Litters, London, 1924, fournal, 1855, p. 74.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. See D. C. Rossetti : his family letters, 2 vols., London,

1895, vol. I, p. 255 ; H. T. Dunn, Recollections of D. C. Rossetti and his circle,

London, 1904, pp. 55 ff. ; Rossetti Papers: 7662-1670, London, 1903, pp.

177, 179, 251, 255, 353, 355, etc. ; I. V. Hunt, The Wife of Rossetti, London,

1932, p. 47.

Rumbold, Sir Horace. Recollections of a diplomatist, 2 vols., London, 1902, I,
pp. 229, 230.

Ruskin, John. See Cook, E. T., The Life of fohn Ruskin, 2 vols., London, 1911,

II, pp. 71, 72, 273-
SETON, ROBERT. Memories of many years (1839-1922), London, 1923, p. 161
Silbert, Maria. See Walter, D., " Die Seherin von Waltendorf " in Psychische
Studien, 1918, XLV, pp. 470-72 ; McKenzie, J. H., " The mediumship of
Frau Silbert " in Psychic Science, 1922, I, pp. 248-271 ; Bond, F. B., " The
remarkable phenomena of Frau Silbert " in lb., 1923, II, pp. 8-36, and cf.
lb., 37-44 ; Ztschr.fitr Parapsychol, 1928, pp. 38 ff., 322 ff., 553 ff., 726 ff. ;
Ztschr. fur metap. Forschung, 1932, 6/7 Heft, pp. 175-181 ; Evian, Adalbert,
The Mediumship of Maria Silbert, London, 1936, reviewed by E. J. Dingwall
in the fournal of the Society for Psychical Research, April, 1937, XXX,
pp. 62-64.

Taisey-Chatenoy, Irene de. A la Cour dc Napoleon III, z' ed., Paris, 1891,
pp. 30, 33, 35, etc.

Trollope, Frances. Fashionable Life, 3 vols., London, 1856, II, pp. 120 ff.
Trollope, Frances Eleanor. Frances Trollope: her life and literary work, 2 vols.,

London, 1895, II, pp. 266 ff.
Trollope, Thomas A. What I Remember, 2 vols., London, 1887, II, pp. 374, etc.

Cf. his letter in The Athenaeum, April 4, 1863, p. 460.

APPI ND1 ^

TuiLERIES SITTINGS. In addition (0 tin- work'. . itrd above by n.imc and mrnliuiinl
in the text the following have nl.su been found useful :
DARTHEZ, 11. The Empress Eugenie and bet Circle, London, 1912, pp. 1 ;/ 143,
164-167.

Chambrier, J. de. Second Umpire, Paris, 1908, pp. 261 fl.
Lano, P. DE. L'Impe'ratrice Eugenie, Paris, 1900, pp. 55 ff., 63.
Mauget, I. L' Impcratrice Eugenie, Paris, 1909, pp. 169, 176.
METTERNICH, Princess Pauline. The Days that arc no more, London, 1921,
pp. 177 fF.

Murat, Princess Caroline. My Memories, London, 1910, pp. 273 ff.

Sencourt, R. The Life of the Empress Eugenie, London, 1931, p. 106.

Sergeant, P. W. The Last Empress 0} the French, London, 1907, pp. 202 ff.

Soissons, G. J. R. E. C E. DE Savoie-Carignan, Comte de. The true story
of the Empress Eugenie, London, 1921, p. 130.

Tascher de la Pagerie, Comtesse S. Mem se'jour aux Tuil tries, 5" ed., 3 vols.,
Paris, 1893-95, vol. I, pp. 193-207.
Viel-Castel, M. R. Horace de Salviac de. Memoircs. 6 vols., Paris, 1883-84,
IV, pp. 258, 341 ff. (It seems possible that Sir Richard Burton, in his
Terminal Essay in the Benares Edition of the Arabian Nights, means Home
when he speaks of " Henne (the spiritualist) " on p. 252, and similarly
H. S. Ashbee is clearly borrowing from Viel-Castel when he speaks of Home
in his Catena Librorum Taccndorum, London, 1885, p. xiv.)
Ward, Henrietta Mary Ada, Mrs. Edward Matthew. Memories of ninety
years, London, 1924, pp. 102 ff.

v

CHAPTER SIX

ANGEL ANNA : THE WOMAN WHO FAILED

Of all the criminal trials of recent times that of Laura and Theodore
Horos contained the largest number of puzzling features and
curious problems. Although we are not concerned here with the
career of the male prisoner (whose personality and abnormal traits
were, to say the least, exceedingly singular), that of Angel Anna
herself provided enough material to furnish discussion of many
points of absorbing interest. The kernel of the matter is, of course,
the influence of the hereditary and environmental factors in Anna's
criminal career. That heredity is of some importance few will
dispute. If it be assumed, therefore, that a person's hereditary
disposition favours anti-social action, then it is probable that home
surroundings, education and later environment will be instrumental
in directing the anti-social impulses into the particular kind of
criminal activity to which their drive impels him. In the case of
Anna, however, other factors have to be considered. We must
remember that in her case there was the possibility of organic
disease. Before she was forty her obesity was such that it pointed
to some fault in her basal metabolism. The suggestion that she
suffered simply from some form of pituitary dysfunction is, I think,
dubious, as the little information we have on her physical appearance
does not support what is commonly supposed to be usual in this
condition. On the other hand, if we suppose that, in addition to
some impairment of the pituitary function, other glandular
syndromes were present, then her appearance would not be difficult
to explain, and I have little doubt that her preference for the loose
flowing gowns she wore was not due to any particular desire to
appear eccentric, but rather was in order to hide as far as was
possible what might have approached the more monstrous cases of
hereditary generalized polysarcia. However that may be, the
energy and intellectual acuteness of her mind bore no comparison
with the slow moving and sluggish movements of her body. When
sitting in the dock at the Central Criminal Court she was often
observed with her eyes closed and as if asleep ; but it was clear
that she was following every word, as she became instantly alert

APPKND1X

ll any fresh fad emerged to which her attention hail i<> \>v
directed.

Unfortunately we know little "I her lire from the tunc thai ihe
left school to the time when she came into conflict with Victoria
Woodhull. It seems certain thai even at that time she was engaged
in petty frauds, but her method of approaching the Claflin sisters
showed how alive she was to the influence of suggestion when it
could be used to further her own interests. Both the two female
brokers were fanatical feminists far in advance of their time, and
they spared no blushes in their treatment of the more delicate social
issues. Tennessee was fulminating against secret vices and abortion
as early as 1871 ; and as to prostitution, it was she who advocated
the immediate formation of a Male Rescue Society, and one on a
large scale. So when Anna hinted that it was to the streets that
she would go were Victoria not to help her, how well she knew
how to touch the soft spot in the heart of that hard-headed business
woman. Her proposal, however, to join the Claflins was promptly
turned down. And the decision to send her to Blackwell's Island
for observation strongly suggests that there was something about
her even at that time that the legal authorities thought was not
quite normal. Maybe Victoria Woodhull thought so too, and
possibly both sisters were not particularly anxious to add a third
woman to an organization which got on well enough with two,
supported as they were by such powerful male interests outside.
For these interests were very good for the sisters, and well they
knew it. Was not one of their parlours at the Hoffman House
decorated, not only with a portrait of the great Cornelius Vanderbilt,
but also with a glazed motto on which were the words, " Simply
to Thy Cross I cling " ? It is true that some of the " powdered
counter-jumping dandies " that Tennessee professed to despise were
probably muttering something about the precious metal of which
the cross was made. But what did that matter if the spirits brought
the gold ? The old Commodore was a firm believer in spiritualism,
for it seemed to bring the kind of results which counted. From
rushing off to Staten Island to consult the famous Mrs. Tufts, he
would hasten back to Woodhull, Claflin and Company, and Victoria
would soon pass off into trance and tell him about the trend of the
market and the movements of his stock. Thus, the inclusion of
Anna on the staff had a double disadvantage. She was a woman
and she was a medium. It certainly could not be risked.

Of Anna's life with Messant we know nothing, neither do we

196

SOMI: HUMAN ODDITIES

know what happened to her child alter her husband had died.
I he next stage, however, was crucial. Once she entered the
Iraudiilent spirit medium business she was lost. Life was so easy :
it was, as the Americans say, like taking candy out of a blind
baby's mouth. Dupes, their pockets full of money, were everywhere
waiting to be fooled ; and their deception was rendered all the
easier through Anna's winning and persuasive manner and her
glittering, magnetic eyes. The life was, however, unhealthy.
Sitting day after day in darkened parlours was not good for Anna's
figure, although her liking for sea bathing may partly have been
due to her fear of her increasing corpulence.

The change in Anna's mode of life seems to have arrived with
the coming of Jackson. In all probability the reasons for their
attachment were mixed. Anna's maternal instinct may have been
sharpened by this odd specimen of humanity so different from
herself, whilst at the same time she doubtless saw his possibilities
in business. Of what went on when they were operating in New
Orleans we have no exact knowledge. The city teemed with
dubious joints and night dives ; and it is not impossible that the
Jacksons were running an establishment under the sign of the
Crystal Star, which is more usually associated with a Crystal Palace
or Hall of Mirrors. 1 The ejection from Bucktown, however, was
the deciding factor in their leaving the United States ; and after
South Africa became too hot for them the choice was between
Paris and London. Language difficulties, possible complications
with the French milieu, and the discovery that Paris preferred less
mixed forms of certain enterprises probably contributed to their
choice of London, and the fateful meeting with Wood and the
Army of the Lord may have put into Jackson's head the idea of
the novel form of racket that was afterwards unveiled in Gower
Street.

William Wood's fantastic outfit had got into trouble in 1887.
In September and October of that year there was rioting both in
Maidstone and in Brighton, for rumour had it that immoral
practices were going on behind the facade of King Solomon's

1 For this side of New Orleans see H. Asbury, The French Quarter (London,
1937), and cf. " New Orleans cleans house " (Collier's, March 11, 1943, pp. 22 ff.,
for the state of the city to-day. A bibliographical attempt to deal with the
famous Blue Book and other guides to the brothels of New Orleans was written
by Semper Idem (i.e. C. F. Heartman) and printed privately in 1936 in Heartman's
Historical Series, No. 50.

AI'I'I [ !l H \

Temple with the connivance and possible assistance ol the attendant
ladies.

The ritual used by Wood was not unlike that which went on
in Gower Street. In the hall, which was draped with crimson,
King Solomon sat on a platform side by side with Queen Lsther
and surrounded by other distinguished persons. In front ol the
platform was a circular space railed oil by a gilt fence, and it was
here that the worshippers used to sing and dance, go into ecstasies
and suffer convulsions, and then prophesy and utter exhortations.
The community was self-supporting, but it was rumoured that
several of the worshippers had been induced to give up money and
jewellery which was pawned for what it would fetch.

Although there are, as has been said, points of resemblance
between Wood's Society and the Order of the Golden Dawn in
the Outer, there is no doubt that Anna's outfit possessed features
of which Wood had never dreamt, and which he would not have
been able to manage even if he had thought of them. Some of
these (over which it is necessary to cast a veil) were clearly those to
which the Judge was referring when giving sentence, and concerning
which even The Lancet preferred to be silent. Whatever they may
have been, Anna's attitude towards Jackson and his activities
remains very difficult to understand. Did her polymorphous,
perverse inclinations lead her to forms of a kind of mixoscopia, or
was her affection for Jackson such that she could refuse him
nothing ? Had a complete verbatim account of the various hearings
been preserved, above all, the medical testimony and the resulting
cross-examination, we might have been able to answer these
questions in a more satisfactory manner. But no such record
unfortunately exists. All we can do, therefore, is to speculate, to
guess and to think of possibilities. But we must not jump to
conclusions. Of all the women who have ever faced a British
judge, Angel Anna was one of the oddest and the most intriguing.
With that we must leave her.

The literature concerning Mrs. Jackson is very scanty. For the
story of her life I have relied almost entirely upon the American
and British Press, of which it is unnecessary to list either the titles
or dates. In Prisoner at the Bar (London, 1943), A. L. Ellis has
devoted a chapter to the trial at the Central Criminal Court, and
J. Mulholland has something to say about her in his Beware
Familiar Spirits (New York and London, 1938), pp. 251 ff. I
have also had the advantage of consulting a few people who

i 9 8

SOMF HUMAN ODDITIES

still remember the case, and were in touch with legal circles at
the time.

Details of the scandals connected with the Army of the Lord
will be found in the local Press of the period ; and some light on
the mentality of Wood is thrown by his pamphlet, All for Jehovah
Jesus, which is headed " Prince Salem Jesus : King Solomon jesus,"
and which was issued in Brighton in 1886.

Finally, for those who are interested in the connexions between
occultism and sexuality I would especially recommend as an intro-
duction to the subject, E. Laurent and P. Nagour, L'Oceultisme ct
Y Amour (Paris, 1902) ; H. Freimark, Okkultismus u. Sexualitat
(Leipzig, 1909) ; H. Freimark, Das erotische Element im Okkultismus
(Pfullmgen in Wiirttemberg, 1922) ; G. Lomer, Die Magie dcr Lithe
(Pfullingen in Wiirttemberg, 1922 ; F. V. Schoffel, Irrwtgt dcs
Sexualtriebes una 1 6 Sinn (Pfullingen in Wiirttemberg, 1922) ;
F. Behrendt, " Das mystische Erlebnis und seine Beziehung zur
Erotik " (Psychol, u. Med., 1926, II, pp. 47-64 ; and W. Greiser,
Weih und Mystik (Leipzig, 1928).

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serious account of hypnotism and telepathy, magic and
alchemy, precognition and spiritualism, psychic healing
and modern mysticism. Yet the simplest facts about his
life and his teachings remain bitterly disputed now, two
hundred years after he was born. Savant or scoundrel!
Here is the true role of this splendid, tragic figure!

$6.50

29. AMULETS AND TALISMANS by E. A. Wallis
Budge. Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Christian,
Gnostic and Muslim Amulets and Talismans and Mag-
ical Figures, with chapters on the Evil Eye, the origin
of the Pentagon, the Swastika, the Cross, the prop-
erties of Stones, Rings, Divination, Numbers, the Kab-
balah, Ancient Astrology. With 22 plates and 300
illustrations. The objects were carved with love and
reverence in bone, wood, ivory, gold, precious stones,
papyri. They were worn as frontlets between the eyes,
suspended over the heart, around throat and arm,
displayed on altars in honor of Osiris, Marduk, Jehovah,
Ishtar, Isis, Virgin Mary, and buried with the mummies
of great kings. They provide our most fruitful and
authentic knowledge of ancient art and religion.
6'/4" x 9'/<", 592 pages. $10.00

30. SCIENCE AND PSYCHICAL PHENOM-
ENA and APPARITIONS by G. N. M. Tyrrell.
These two famous classics of psychical research are
now bound together in one volume. They are the best
introduction to the subject. $7.50

31. THE BOOK OF CEREMONIAL MAGIC

by A. E. Waite, Part I, the Literature of Ceremonial
Magic, provides the key passages from the principal
texts of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. Part II is
a complete Grimoire, the best source of magical pro-
cedure extant. 9 plates and 94 line drawings. 6'/s" x
9'A". $10.00

33. OSIRIS: THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION
OF RESURRECTION by E. A. Wallis Budge. Fra-
zer's GOLDEN BOUGH has made us familiar with a god
who dies each year that he and his worshippers may
live anew. Attis, Adonis, Osiris are the great examples.
Sir Wallis Budge gives us the definitive study of Osiris
in depth. Much of it is startling indeed. Egyptian reli-
gion in its cruelty, its cannibalism, its bloodthirstiness,
its general coloring, is African through and through.
It shares with its kindred cults in Asia as its central
belief the believer's hope of resurrection and immor-
tality which is realized through the death and resurrec-
tion of Osiris. Osiris himself is both the father and the
slain. It is his son Horus, the living and victorious
Savior, who, "when his arm grew strong," triumphs
over Osiris' brother and slayer, Set, and Osiris is
resurrected as god-man. 896 pages plus 14 pages of

leplnillli llmr. .mil li.msi ilplliins d' Vx'I'.r $l'il)l)
I I. HUMAN I'liltSON il l I V AND ITS SUH

VIVAL OF BODILY DEATH t>v I W II

Myeis Iniewiinl Iiy Ahliius Huxley Myer. made two
outstanding iiiinlilliutluns (I) His themy nl telepathy
.is line nl Ihe basii: laws ul hie, (") his conception nl
"subliminal," which today we call tin: nncunsciiius, as
the greater portion ul human personality. Willi. mi lames
calls Myers "the pioneer who staked nut a vast trad
ol mental wilderness and planted Ihe Hag ul genuine
science on it." Gardner Murphy says: "Myers is the
great central classic nl psychical research." Aldous
Huxley finds Myers more comprehensive and truer to
the data of experience than Freud and Jung. Willi Ihe
subliminal as his principal tool Myers examined hun-
dreds of cases of alleged survival of death and devel-
oped his own hypothesis. $10.00

35. THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSY
CROSS, by Arthur Edward Waite. The author's
account bears very little resemblance to the claims of
the Theosophists and latter-day Rosicrucians. To put it
more plainly, our author has taken their skins off in
the course of establishing the true story. But all this
is only to make way for his reverence and love for the
real Rosicrucians. The myths and frauds fall away and
there emerges the inspiring true history of Rosicrucian-
ism, its original doctrines, their unfolding and chang-
ing, what was and what was not its relationship to
Freemasonry, a most notable chapter on the great
English Rosicrucian Robert Fludd, and a particularly
fascinating chapter on the history of the Rosy Cross
in Russia. 29 pages of plates. 704 pages, 6to"x9W".

$10.00

36. COLOR PSYCHOLOGY AND COLOR
THERAPY by Faber Birren. The author makes his
living by prescribing color. He prescribes it to gov-
ernment, to education, to the armed forces, to archi-
tecture, to industry and commerce. This book gives his
prescriptions and how they are arrived at. He makes
very clear his great debt to the mystics and occultists.

$7.50

37. ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL AND MODERN
CHRISTIANITY: The Evolution of a Reli-
gion, by Charles Guignebert. The late Professor of the
History of Christianity at the Sorbonne here applies
the theory of evolution to Christianity itself. The author
believes that every religion is born, develops, adapts
and transforms itself, grows old and dies. Ancient
Christianity was a purely Eastern religion. It was fol-
lowed by, in effect, another religion full of doctrines
and things which would have been strange and incom-
prehensible to the Apostles. Still another religion
emerges in modern Roman Catholicism. Guignebert
warms these scientific truths, which may be unpleasant
to professing Christians, by his fervent belief that the
honest study of religion is "the mother of tolerance
and religious peace." 640 pages, e'/s" x 9 '/i ". $7.50

38. THE HOLY GRAIL: The Galahad Quest
in the Arthurian Literature by Arthur Edward

Waite. All the journeys and adventures of the Knights
of the Round Table lead to the Holy Grail. It becomes

deal lli.il Ihi'v .lie mil us illy journey!, mi horseback
by knights cliillii'd in annul, hut juurncy;. of the spirit.
The gay ladies prove to he immortal goddesses. Doubly
strang< is Lancelot, the hero of a great illicit love who,
in still another illicit union, fathers Sir Galahad, the
Christ-like winner of the quest for the Holy Grail. Triply
strange is the Grail itself, for no two accounts agree
on its shape, nature, guardians or whereabouts. Yet
all this has a plain, if profound, meaning. Its meaning
was necessarily hidden in the Middle Ages, otherwise
its authors would have been sent to the stake. For
beneath its pious surface, the Grail is as subversive as
is all true mysticism. A. E. Waite has given back to us,
as no other scholar has, the true and full meaning of
the quest for the Holy Grail. Giant octavo, 640 pages.

$10.00

39. ADONIS ATTIS OSIRIS, by Sir James
George Frazer; Introduction by Sidney Waldron. The book
that has most influenced modern literature is Frazer's
GOLDEN BOUGH and this influence comes mainly from
Frazer's writings on the year-gods, Adonis, Attis and
Osiris. Here are the original unabridged volumes (two
bound as one) of which the title is ADONIS ATTIS
OSIRIS and which constitute Part IV of the thirteen
volumes of the unabridged GOLDEN BOUGH. These are
of course the gods of death-and-resurrection, each
loved by a mother-geddess, tragically done to death,
mourned, and (in a yearly cycle attuned to calendar
and harvests! brought back to life. A new Introduc-
tion by the anthropologist Sidney Waldron defends
Frazer against his critics. Crown Octavo, 672 pages.

$10.00

40. THE FUTURE IS NOW, The Significance
of Precognition by Arthur W. Osborn. Introduction by
Eileen J. Garrett. Belief in prophecy is one of the oldest
convictions of mankind. It appears again in our time
in the form of precognition: accurate premonitions of
the future. Precognition is the most baffling of all
paranormal phenomena even though the most abun-
dantly documented and established. Clairvoyance and
telepathy at least occur in our present time field. But
precognition "transmits" information not only across
space but across time fields! The author's case his-
tories (including personal experiences of his wife and
himself) range through precognitive warnings, precog-
nition of death, of trivial events, of significant events,
and longer-range precognitions. $6.00

41. STRANGE LIFE OF IVAN OSOKIN by

P. D. Ouspensky. The author is of course the famous
exiled Russian psychologist, author of TERTIUM ORGA-
NUM and A NEW MODEL OF THE UNIVERSE. Here he
turns to the novel to put flesh and blood on his
esoteric science. By a clever device a man gets a
chance to relive his life. He experiences expulsion
from school, the sweetness of young love, the reck-
less gambling of his Paris days-all exactly as before.
Again he meets the great love of his life and lets
her slip out of his reach. The last pages bring a
quite unexpected development-there is a way out,
hard and difficult and long, but a way out. Ouspensky
personally supervised the English version of his novel.

$5.00

12. FALLEN ANGELS and MEADS OF
DEMONS. I qui plates 8Vi by 11" suitable loi
hanging or liaming, reproduced in lour colors from
the original 1801 edition of Francis Barrett's THE
MAGUS. We have all seen these heads reproduced in
inferior ways many times for they are the classic
portraits of Apollyon, Beolial, Asmodeus, Incubus,
Astaroth and Ophis. But these are the first accurate
reproductions in full color. $5.00

43. LE MORTE DARTHUR — The Book of
Kins Arthur and His Knights of the Round
Table by Sir Thomas Malory. This is the complete,
unexpurgated text; the only liberty taken with the
original has been to modernize the spelling to make it
easily readable. This is the only edition in print today
in large format, a big beautiful book of one thousand
and eight pages. Here you will find restored in full the
great tales of adultery, Launcelot and Guenever, Tris-
tram and Isoud; the lighthearted journeys for women
and adventure that have been cut out of the school
book versions; all the pre-Christian magic and witch-
craft; the complex and eternally puzzling appearances
of the Holy Grail which are nowadays not thought suit-
able for children. Only in this unexpurgated and com-
plete version does it become clear how the lighthearted
journeys build up to the journeys of the soul, that they
were not really journeys on horseback and clothed in
armor, but journeys of the spirit. $15.00

44. ALEISTER CROWLEY, THE MAN: THE
MACE: THE POET a Biography by Charles
Richard Cammell; Introduction by John C. Wilson. A
quiet and dignified life of Crowley (1875-1947) written
not in a spirit of polemic but to introduce Crowley anew
for what he really was — a great poet and mystic — and
not the "great beast" portrayed by the yellow press.

$6.00

45. THE VAMPIRE IN EUROPE by Montague
Summers; Introduction by Father Brocard Sewell. As
the title indicates, this is the work which the author
devoted to the history of the vampire in the Western
world. Chapter headings: The Vampire in Greece and
Rome of Old; The Vampire in England, and Ireland, and
some Latin Lands; Hungary and Czechoslovakia; Modern
Greece; Russia, Roumania and Bulgaria. The introduc-
tory essay by an English priest who has long studied
the work and life of Summers reveals hitherto unknown
facts of the author's mysterious life. $7.50

47. THE HEALING CODS OF ANCIENT
CIVILIZATIONS by Walter A. Jayne, M.D.; Intro-
duction by Thomas Gaddis. The belief persists that the
ancients knew things about healing we would do well
to rediscover. Psychotherapy has given us new under-
standing of how the ancients used psychic aids in the
healing temples. Rauwolfia, source of many of the new
miracle drugs, comes from ancient India. How many
more remain to be rediscovered? Dr. Jayne provides
clues by a complete roster of ancient healing gods
which in effect serves as a dictionary of these ancient
gods. Some of the re-discoveries by modern medicine
and psychiatry are summed up in Thomas Gaddis'
Introduction. $7.50